Mohammad-Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou is Professor of International History and Chair of the International History Department at the Graduate Institute in Geneva, and he teaches as well at the Doctoral School at Sciences Po Paris. He was previously the Associate Director of the Harvard University Program on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research and Deputy-Director and Academic Dean of the Geneva Center for Security Policy. He is the author of A Theory of ISIS (2017), Understanding Al Qaeda (2011), and Iraq and the Second Gulf War (2002), and co-editor of Democratisation in the 21st Century.