Violent Non-State Special Operations: a book talk

April 24, 2025 recording of a book talk with GWU Program on Extremism

Posting the first book talk on Non-state special operations with our friend Omar Mohammad, the co-creator of the Mosul podcast featured on The ISIS Reader substack. He asked some great questions in this discussion which I really enjoyed. GWU’s Program on Extremism also hosted the ISIS files which provided some great insights into the group from documents found outside of Mosul, leading to a research paper we published on the ISIS’ war machine: The Department of Soldiers (Diwan al-Jund). This discussion contains a discussion of how ISIS served as our gateway for research into non-state special operations, and how three Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) and ISIS special operations helped us develop the framework we apply to a wide range of violent non-state actors.

Book link: Routledge page