Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Preface -- Prologue the city of Zarqa -- The seeds of religious radicalism -- Stranger among warriors -- The imprisonment -- The road to September 11 -- Return to Afghanistan -- The myth of Abu Mos'ab al-Zarqawi -- Facts and fiction about al-Zarqawi's international network -- Insurgent Iraq -- The new Mongols -- The Iraqi jihad -- Slipping into civil war -- The true nature of the Iraqi insurgency -- The balkanization of Iraq -- Appendix: the diary of Falluja -- Glossary -- Notes -- Index.