Lesley Bates meets scholar and writer Peter Willey, of Upavon, who has spent a lifetime on the trail of the Assassins of Syria and Iran.
PERCHED high above the desert, ruined medieval castles cling to rocky outcrops, undisturbed for centuries.
They are all that remain of the fortresses of the Assassins members of the Nizari Ismaili sect of Muslims who built their eyries in the remote, inaccessible mountainous regions of Syria and Iran to escape religious persecution.
Until the 19th and 20th Centuries, little was known about them, beyond their legendary status as drug-crazed mercenaries who dispatched their enemies with ruthless efficiency.
Ismailimail 