Hunting Season: The Execution of James Foley, Islamic State, and the Real Story of the Kidnapping Campaign that Started a War

Description

On 19 August 2014, a member of the jihadist rebel group known as ISIS uploaded a video to YouTube. Entitled 'Message to America', the clip depicted the final moments of the life of kidnapped American journalist James Foley - and the gruesome aftermath of his beheading at the hands of a masked executioner. Foley's murder - and the other choreographed killings that would follow - captured the world's attention, and Islamic State's campaign of kidnapping exploded into regional war. Based on three years of on-the-ground reporting from every side of the Syrian conflict, HUNTING SEASON is James Harkin's quest to uncover the truth about how and why Islamic State came to target Western hostages, who was behind it and why almost no one outside a small group of people knew anything about it until it was too late. He reveals how the campaign of kidnapping and the development of Islamic State were joined at the hip from the beginning. The book is an utterly absorbing account of the world's newest and most powerful terror franchise and what it means for modern war.

James Harkin is an author of three previous books and a journalist who has written for the Guardian, Vanity Fair, the Atlantic, the New Republic and Newsweek. He is an analyst of new social, political, and technological trends and is the director of Flockwatching - a think-tank that looks at the relationship between new media and social change. He lives in London.

The most comprehensive work to date on the hostage story * The Times * To understand Islamic State, there can be few better books to read than Hunting Season, James Harkin's heart-breaking investigation into the kidnappings of twenty-four foreigners in Syria . . . a gripping inside view . . . Hunting Season is a masterclass in tireless investigation, war reporting and narrative journalism. It is hard to imagine a more fitting testament to Harkin's colleagues who never came home * Literary Review *