STW: Patrick Cockburn, Leena Hoffmann, Gerard Russell and Katherine Brown - 2nd Feb 2015

Summary: Tom Sutcliffe talks to the journalist Patrick Cockburn about the rise of the Islamic State and the failure of the West's foreign policy in the Middle East. The academic Katherine Brown looks at the long-term strategy of IS by focusing on how it has persuaded Muslim women in the West to join its cause. While Leena Hoffman turns to the workings of another Islamist group - Boko Haram in Northern Nigeria. Gerard Russell is a former British diplomat in the Middle East and he recounts the demise of religious tolerance and the fate of some ancient faiths, now disappearing - from the Mandaeans to the Yazidis.