In recent decades the attention of the international community is focused on the spread of the extremism and terrorism in the Near East that takes a religious, Islamic turn. The authors of this study made an attempt to examine and analyze the war in Iraq (2003-2011) on the basis of existing theoretical approaches to the phenomenon of «4th generation warfare». Special attention was paid to the actions of the terrorist organization “Islamic State” and its expansion from the local to the global level, which is specifi c for such type of confl icts.