Author: Fawaz A. GergesPublisher: OUP USA
ISBN: 0199790655
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 270
Book Description
The author re-evaluates the threat posed by Al-Qaeda following a decade of war.
The Rise and Fall of Al-Qaeda
Author: Fawaz A. GergesPublisher: OUP USA
ISBN: 0199790655
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 270
Book Description
The author re-evaluates the threat posed by Al-Qaeda following a decade of war.
The Rise and Fall of Osama Bin Laden
Author: Peter L. BergenPublisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1982170530
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 416
Book Description
The world’s leading expert on Osama bin Laden delivers for the first time the “riveting” (The New York Times) definitive biography of a man who set the course of American foreign policy for the 21st century and whose ideological heirs we continue to battle today. In The Rise and Fall of Osama bin Laden, Peter Bergan provides the first reevaluation of the man responsible for precipitating America’s long war with al-Qaeda and its decedents, capturing bin Laden in all the dimensions of his life: as a family man, as a zealot, as a battlefield commander, as a terrorist leader, and as a fugitive. The book sheds light on his many contradictions: he was the son of a billionaire yet insisted his family live like paupers. He adored his wives and children, depending on his two wives, both of whom had PhDs, to make critical strategic decisions. Yet, he also brought ruin to his family. He was fanatically religious but willing to kill thousands of civilians in the name of Islam. He inspired deep loyalty, yet, in the end, his bodyguards turned against him. And while he inflicted the most lethal act of mass murder in United States history, he failed to achieve any of his strategic goals. In his final years, the lasting image we have of bin Laden is of an aging man with a graying beard watching old footage of himself, just as another dad flipping through the channels with his remote. In the end, bin Laden died in a squalid suburban compound, far from the front lines of his holy war. And yet, despite that unheroic denouement, his ideology lives on. Thanks to exclusive interviews with family members and associates, and documents unearthed only recently, Bergen’s “comprehensive, authoritative, and compelling” (H.R. McMaster, author of Dereliction of Duty and Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World) portrait of Osama bin Laden reveals for the first time who he really was and why he continues to inspire a new generation of jihadists.
The Rise and Fall of Al-Qaeda
Author: Fawaz A. GergesPublisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199911711
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 272
Book Description
In this concise and fascinating book, Fawaz A. Gerges argues that Al-Qaeda has degenerated into a fractured, marginal body kept alive largely by the self-serving anti-terrorist bureaucracy it helped to spawn. In The Rise and Fall of Al-Qaeda, Gerges, a public intellectual known widely for his expertise on radical ideologies, including jihadism, argues that the Western powers have become mired in a "terrorism narrative," stemming from the mistaken belief that America is in danger of a devastating attack by a crippled al-Qaeda. To explain why al-Qaeda is no longer a threat, he provides a briskly written history of the organization, showing its emergence from the disintegrating local jihadist movements of the mid-1990s-not just the Afghan resistance of the 1980s, as many believe-in "a desperate effort to rescue a sinking ship by altering its course." During this period, Gerges interviewed many jihadis, gaining a first-hand view of the movement that bin Laden tried to reshape by internationalizing it. Gerges reveals that transnational jihad has attracted but a small minority within the Arab world and possesses no viable social and popular base. Furthermore, he shows that the attacks of September 11, 2001, were a major miscalculation--no "river" of fighters flooded from Arab countries to defend al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, as bin Laden expected. The democratic revolutions that swept the Middle East in early 2011 show that al-Qaeda today is a non-entity which exercises no influence over Arabs' political life. Gerges shows that there is a link between the new phenomenon of homegrown extremism in Western societies and the war on terror, particularly in Afghanistan-Pakistan, and that homegrown terror exposes the structural weakness, not strength, of bin Laden's al-Qaeda. Gerges concludes that the movement has splintered into feuding factions, neutralizing itself more effectively than any Predator drone. Forceful, incisive, and written with extensive inside knowledge, this book will alter the debate on global terrorism.
The Longest War
Author: Peter L. BergenPublisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0743278941
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 498
Book Description
At a critical moment in world history The Longest War provides the definitive account of the ongoing battle against terror. --Book Jacket.
The Secret History of Al Qaeda
Author: Abdel Bari AtwanPublisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520255616
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 332
Book Description
Drawing on unparalleled access to Osama bin Laden and his key associates, journalist Abdel Bari Atwan gives an incisive and timely account of the rise of the notorious terrorist organization, al Qaeda.
American Traitor
Author: StalinskyPublisher: Memri Books
ISBN: 9780967848020
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :
Book Description
This is the hardcover edition of the same book as a paperback already listed.
Messages to the World
Author: Osama bin LadenPublisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1789603064
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 428
Book Description
Despite the saturation of global media coverage, Osama bin Laden's own writings have been curiously absent from analysis of the "war on terror." Over the last ten years, bin Laden has issued a series of carefully tailored public statements, from interviews with Western and Arabic journalists to faxes and video recordings. These texts supply evidence crucial to an understanding of the bizarre mix of Quranic scholarship, CIA training, punctual interventions in Gulf politics and messianic anti-imperialism that has formed the programmatic core of Al Qaeda. In bringing together the various statements issued under bin Laden's name since 1994, this volume forms part of a growing discourse that seeks to demythologize the terrorist network. Newly translated from the Arabic, annotated with a critical introduction by Islamic scholar Bruce Lawrence, this collection places the statements in their religious, historical and political context. It shows how bin Laden's views draw on and differ from other strands of radical Islamic thought; it also demonstrates how his arguments vary in degrees of consistency, and how his evasions concerning the true nature and extent of his own group, and over his own role in terrorist attacks, have contributed to the perpetuation of his personal mythology.
Unholy Terror
Author: John R. SchindlerPublisher:
ISBN: 9781616739645
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 380
Book Description
Al-Qa’ida: in the 80s they were in Afghanistan, supported by America and fighting the Russians. In the new century they have metastasized throughout the world’s geopolitical body. Where were they in the 90s? Unholy Terror provides the answer, with all its terrifying implications for our world today. This book provides the missing piece in the puzzle of al-Qa’ida’s transformation from an isolated fighting force into a lethal global threat: the Bosnian war of 1992 to 1995. John R. Schindler reveals the unexamined role that radical Islam played in that terrible conflict--and the ill-considered contributions of American policy to al-Qa’ida’s growth. His book explores a truth long hidden from view: that, like Afghanistan in the 1980s, Bosnia in the 1990s became a training ground for the mujahidin. Unholy Terror at last exposes the shocking story of how bin Laden successfully exploited the Bosnian conflict for his own ends--and of how the U. S. Government gave substantial support to his unholy warriors, leading to blowback of epic proportions.
Global Jihadism
Author: Jarret M. BrachmanPublisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134055404
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 225
Book Description
Global Jihadism exposes the core doctrine and strategy of today’s global Jihadist movement. The first half of the book explores the ideas upon which groups such as Al Qaeda are built, including the concepts of Jihad, al-Wala wal-Bara, Takfir and Tawhid. Jarret Brachman exposes a genre of Jihadist strategic scholarship that has been virtually ignored in the West and helps to situate it within the broader Salafist religious movement. The second half explores the thinking and activities of Al Qaeda’s propaganda machine, explaining its intricacies and idiosyncrasies. It includes case studies on the rise and fall of global Jihadist terrorism in Saudi Arabia post-9/11, and highlights the explosive results of bringing theory to bear on practice in the United Kingdom over the past twenty years. The book concludes by providing innovative strategies for combating the global Jihadist ideology.
Al-Qaeda
Author: Jason BurkePublisher: ePenguin
ISBN: 9780141031361
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 416
Book Description
To most in the West, 'al-Qaeda' is seen as a byword for terror: a deadly, highly organised fanatical group masterminded by Osama bin Laden. But does this tell the whole truth? Prize-winning journalist Jason Burke has spent a decade reporting from the heart of the Middle East and gaining unprecedented access to the world of radical Islam. Now, drawing on his frontline experience of recent events in Iraq and Afghanistan, on secret documents and astonishing interviews with intelligence officers, militants, mujahideen commanders and bin Laden's associates, he reveals the full story of al-Qaeda - and demolishes the myths that underpin the 'war on terror'. Burke demonstrates that in fact 'al-Qaeda' is merely a convenient label applied by the West to a far broader - and thus more dangerous - phenomenon of Islamic militancy, and shows how eradicating a single figure or group will do nothing to combat terrorism. Only by understanding the true, complex nature of al-Qaeda, he argues, can we address the real issues surrounding our security today.