Dexter Filkins

The journalist who covered the war in Iraq, and its aftermath, details the militant Sunni Islamist group, the power it has in Iraq and Syria and how its war is destabilizing neighboring countries.

New Yorker writer Dexter Filkins finds an increasingly authoritarian prime minister — Nouri al-Maliki — sectarian violence, and concern for the future. Iraq holds parliamentary elections Wednesday.

Qassem Suleimani is the chief of a powerful branch of Iran's Revolutionary Guard. He is considered to be responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American during the Iraq War, and now he is helping to prop up Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime.