The 1991 Gulf War will forever be associated with Iraqi Scud missiles and the efforts of one special forces unit to hunt them down and destroy them: the British Special Air Service (SAS). In fact, the SAS’s role in the conflict was much broader than Scud hunting, but for some years the Regiment’s campaign during the conflict was shrouded in secrecy and misinformation, and little that was printed adequately explained just what the SAS did during the United Nations war against Saddam Hussein. SA...
La Vie Meconnue Des Temples Mesopotamiens (Docet Omnia, #1)
by Dominique Charpin
The Bravo Two Zero mission conducted by the SAS behind Iraqi lines is the most famous story of courage and survival in modern warfare. Here Chris Ryan reveals for the first time the true aim of the mission. Dropped behind enemy lines, they set off on 20 mile trek across hostile terrain, each man heavily laden with equipment and weaponry. Struggling through unexpected sub-zero temperatures, they soon encountered enemy troops. They then fought against enormous odds in an engagement in which Chris...
Wafaa Bilal's childhood in Iraq was defined by the horrific rule of Saddam Hussein, two wars, a bloody uprising, and time spent interned in chaotic refugee camps in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Bilal eventually made it to the United States to become a professor and a successful artist, but when his brother was killed by an unmanned U.S. Predator drone, he decided to use his art to confront those in the comfort zone with the realities of life in a conflict zone. His response was "Domestic Tension,"...
On 15 September 2003 Baha Mousa, a hotel receptionist, was killed by British Army troops in Iraq. He had been arrested the previous day in Basra and was taken to a military base for questioning. For forty-eight hours he and nine other innocent civilians had their heads encased in sandbags and their wrists bound by plastic handcuffs and had been kicked and punched with sustained cruelty. A succession of guards and casual army visitors took pleasure in beating the Iraqis, humiliating them, forcing...
The History of Iraq, 1900-2012
by Charles River Editors and M CLEMENT HALL
One of the New York Times' 100 Notable Books of 2015 One of Financial Times' Books of the Year, 2015 A New York Times Editors' Choice A New Statesman [UK] Essential Book of the Year 2015 A Times [UK] Book of the Year 2015 Shortlisted for the 2015 Samuel Johnson Prize for Nonfiction Shortlisted for the 2016 Orwell Prize When Emma Sky volunteered to help rebuild Iraq after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003, she had little idea what she was getting in to. Her assignment was only supposed to...
Inanna, a goddess of ancient Mesopotamia, was worshipped around 1800 BCE by our ancestors in the land that is now modern-day Iraq. But who was she? Who were her followers? And what did her stories mean for their lives? Lost for millennia, Inanna’s stories were buried and forgotten, unearthed by archaeologists only recently, around the turn of the 19th century. Their translation has been a remarkable work of collaboration by scholars from disparate parts of the globe, as fragments of stone table...
A Sumerian Palace And The A Cemetery At Kish, Mesopotamia
by Ernest Mackay
Providing up-to-date information for general readers as well as those well-informed about the Islamic State, this book offers an essential understanding of the rise of ISIS and its current influence in the Middle East as well as worldwide. ISIS-also referred to as ISIL, the Islamic State, or Daesh-began to assert its power and gain recognition for its militant and terroristic activities in April 2013. After the coordinated attacks in Paris on November 13th, 2015, ISIS has captured the full atte...
In 1999, 30-year-old Nada Bakos moved from her lifelong home in Montana to Washington, DC, to join the CIA. Quickly realizing her affinity for intelligence work, Nada was determined to rise through the ranks of the agency first as an analyst and then as a Targeting Officer, eventually finding herself on the frontline of America's War against Islamic extremists. In this role, Nada was charged with determining if Iraq had a relationship with 9/11 and Al-Qaida, and finding the mastermind behind thi...
In Twelver Shi'a Islam, the wait for the return of the Twelfth Imam, Muhammad ibn al-Hasan al-Mahdi, at the end of time, overshadowed the value of actively seeking martyrdom. However, what is the place of martyrdom in Twelver Shi'ism today? This book shows that the Islamic revolution in Iran resulted in the marriage of Shi'i messianism and extreme political activism, changing the mindset of the Shi'a worldwide. Suddenly, each drop of martyrs' blood brought the return of al-Mahdi one step close...
From Mesopotamia to Lebanon (CUSAS, #41)
by David I. Owen and Bertrand Lafont
This volume presents critical editions of tablets from the Early Dynastic, Sargonic, Ur III, Old Babylonian, and Middle Babylonian periods, housed in the Jawad Adra Cuneiform Collection in the Nabu Museum in El Heri, Lebanon. Bringing together a wide range of administrative, literary, historical, and lexical texts, From Mesopotamia to Lebanon is a valuable survey of representative documents from the third and second millennia BCE in Mesopotamia. Culled from the most significant collection of...
A beguiling new reimagining of one of the most ancient and mysterious origin myths of human civilization'The Flood didn't come suddenly as a big surprise. It came at the end of a long, tormented story. Men just went on multiplying and the noise they made was ever more irksome . . . I remember days of desperation.'A long time ago, the gods grew tired of humans and decided to send a flood to destroy them. But Ea, the god of fresh underground water, didn't agree. He advised one of his devotees, Utn...