The eruption of the anti-Assad revolution in Syria has had many unintended consequences, among which is the opportunity it offered Sunni jihadists to establish a foothold in the heart of the Middle East. That Syria's ongoing civil war is so brutal and protracted has only compounded the situation, as have developments in Iraq and Lebanon. Ranging across the battlefields and international borders have been dozens of jihadi Islamist fighting groups, of which some coalesced into significant factions such as Jabhat al Nusra and the Islamic State. This book assesses and explains the emergence since 2011 of Sunni jihadist organisations in Syria's fledgling insurgency, charts their evolution and situates them within the global Islamist project. Unprecedented numbers of foreign fighters have joined such groups, who will almost certainly continue to host them. Thus, external factors in their emergence are scrutinised, including the strategic and tactical lessons learned from other jihadist conflict zones and the complex interplay between Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State and how it has influenced the jihadist sphere in Syria. Tensions between and conflict within such groups also feature in this indispensable volume.

In the setting of real-life Zaire and the Great Lakes region of central Africa, three bank investigators provoke retaliation by corrupt government officials. An attractive and skilled fraud investigator from Mauritius finds herself working closely, perhaps too closely, with a charming but discredited banker from California and a Zairian lawyer with intriguing skills. The overnight disappearance of hospitalized infants and the flourishing clandestine market in coffee, valuable minerals and ores along the eastern frontier of the country, gradually coalesce to form an ugly puzzle. After government secrets are revealed by the investigators, a suicide thrusts the American to the top position of the African bank where he has been given asylum. The number of abducted infants grows, promising developments appear to bring hope, cruel events turn upon them, and unexpected moves by three powerful women working behind the scenes change everything.