The spymaster of Baghdad : the untold story of the elite intelligence cell that turned the tide against ISIS / Margaret Coker.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 289-296) and index.

The Spymaster of Baghdad is the gripping story of the top-secret Iraqi intelligence unit that infiltrated the Islamic State. More so than that of any foreign power, the information they gathered turned the tide against the insurgency, paving the way to the killing of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in 2019. Against the backdrop of the most brutal conflict of recent decades, we chart the spymaster's struggle to develop the unit from scratch in challenging circumstances after the American invasion of Iraq in 2003; we follow the fraught relationship of two of his agents, the al-Sudani brothers - one undercover in ISIS for 16 long months, the other his handler - and we track a disillusioned scientist as she turns bomb- and chemical weapon-maker, threatening the lives of thousands. With unprecedented access to characters on all sides, Pulitzer Prize-finalist Margaret Coker challenges the conventional view that western coalition forces defeated ISIS and reveals a page-turning story of unlikely heroes, unbelievable courage and good old-fashioned spycraft.