Chechen Jihad: Al Qaeda's Training Ground and the Next Wave of Terror (Hardcover)

by Yossef Bodansky (Author)
Key Phrases: terrorist state, jihadist commanders, foreign mujahedin, United States, Shamil Basayev, Western Europe (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

In this authoritative look at the roots of modern terrorism, Yossef Bodansky, one of the most respected—and best-informed—experts on radical Islamism in the world today, pinpoints the troubled region of Chechnya as a dangerous and little-understood crucible of terror in the struggle between East and West. In his number one New York Times bestseller, Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America, published before 9/11, Bodansky was among the first to introduce American readers to Osama bin Laden. Now in Chechen Jihad he returns to alert American readers to the lessons to be drawn from the terror campaign in Chechnya—and its ramifications for the global war on terrorism.

The final years of U.S.-Soviet relations left Chechnya a fertile breeding ground for Islamic terrorism, and in the past decade an uneasy alliance of native Chechen separatists and militant jihadists have joined forces to help al Qaeda and the greater Islamist movement pursue its war against the West. As Bodansky points out, "the Chechens are professional fighters—disciplined and responsible, with a combination of skills, expertise, and character that has made them the most sought-after 'force multipliers' in the jihadist movement." Bodansky traces the secret history of the two Chechen wars, illuminating how the process of "Chechenization" transformed the fight from a secular nationalist struggle into a jihadist holy war against Russia and the secular West. And, in the most instructive message for Western audiences, he reveals how the Chechen rebellion was eventually crippled by a schism between the jihadists and the Chechen people whose nationalist rebellion they had co-opted—an object lesson in the potential vulnerability of Islamist campaigns around the world.

Drawing on mountains of previously unseen intelligence from Islamist movements and other military and intelligence sources from throughout the Middle East and Central Asia, as well as senior officials in many of the affected nations, Chechen Jihad offers an intimate and startling portrait of the jihadist movement that is astonishing in its detail and chilling in its implications—but one that points to a new way forward in the struggle to answer the challenges of international Islamist terrorism.

About the Author

Yossef Bodansky, author of The Secret History of the Iraq War and the number one New York Times bestseller Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America, was the director of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare for sixteen years (1988–2004). He is also the longtime director of research at the International Strategic Studies Association. The author of ten books, he has written frequently for numerous periodicals, including Global Affairs, Jane's Defence Weekly, Defense and Foreign Affairs: Strategic Policy, and BusinessWeek. A member of the Prague Society for International Cooperation, he is a former senior consultant for the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Department of State. Bodansky was also a visiting scholar in the Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies. He divides his time between the Middle East and the Washington, D.C., area.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 464 pages
• Publisher: Harper; 1 edition (December 26, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060841702
• ISBN-13: 978-0060841706
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #111,836 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in this category: (What's this?)

  #95 in

  Books > History > World > Islamic

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Percipient writer, shocking information, December 27, 2007

By	Sasha Valoir - See all my reviews

Yossef Bodansky's encyclopedic "Secret History of the Iraq War" drew criticism for having no footnotes. Turns out that persons employed in a certain critical US security organization have to sign an employment contract agreeing not to publish any book with a footnote unless the manuscript is subject to serious editing, at least, by appointed officials. Fortunately, the organization is not the boring, error-filled CIA; it seems to be a quieter one that actually knows something. And so, we can see with years of hindsight, did the author.

Now this mysterious, consummately expert writer has published "Chechen Jihad," another comprehensive work. This one is on a small, combative, fearsome group that, under bombardment, dispossession, slaughter, and unceasing attack by Moscow for its intention to secede from Russia, has thrown its considerable talent and bellicosity in with the global jihad. While sullen, hormonal, anomie-laden Saudi and Pakistani rich boys may pull off ghastly stunts, the really scary guys in the game today are the Chechens.

Thank heaven for Bodansky. Always ahead of other analysts, sometimes by years, and always lavish in laying out information that almost without exception has proven accurate over time, Yossef Bodansky is a secret luminary of open-source genius.

In to the heart of the book, we see a thorough explanation of how Russia has poured men and vast monies into an inch-by-inch fight for territory and, in throwing in billions of petro-rubles for physical development, a fight toward a moderately peaceful society. A central premise is that outsiders can favorably influence a tribal society only by working respectfully through the existing structure of tribal elders and traditions. The brazen, contemporary American vision, sometimes well-intentioned, of uprooting everything familiar among the benighted foreigners in order to thrust in a fully-formed Twenty-first Century electoral system is guaranteed to fail.

As the publisher correctly states: "Drawing on mountains of previously unseen intelligence from Islamist movements and other military and intelligence sources from throughout the Middle East and Central Asia, as well as senior officials in many of the affected nations, Chechen Jihad offers an intimate and startling portrait of the jihadist movement that is astonishing in its detail and chilling in its implications--but one that points to a new way forward in the struggle to answer the challenges of international Islamist terrorism"

For a different take on events in Chechnya, see Thomas Goltz's "Chechnya Diary" (2003). Nonetheless, the polyglot and inscrutable Mr Bodansky has elegantly caught and made available a universe of knowledge that impinges heavily on all our present and future, and probably would never have been revealed otherwise.

6 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Truth, at Last, on Chechnyan Jihadism, and Beautifully Written, December 27, 2007

By	Gregory Copley - See all my reviews

The first "review" posted on Yossef Bodansky's new book was clearly written by one of the "Chechen lovers", who support the Chechen jihadists regardless of their atrocities. And the "review" was clearly written without the benefit of the "reviewer" having read the book. Just another hate piece.

The book by Bodansky, however, is his best yet (I got it the first day it was out), and, as someone working for the past 40 years on terrorist issues, I can vouch for its authenticity. One thing about Bodansky is that he tells the truth regardless of the consequences, and this has always stirred up the politically correct, and those with an ideological agenda. That makes his books exciting reading.

More than anything, however, this new book shows how superbly his writing style has matured, and how his decades of work have given him the benefit of experience and, not surprisingly, the credibility required to have people talk to him, and offer him surprising access. Moreover, and I confess to having talked for many decades to Bodansky on these topics, I know that many committed Islamists often talk with him, off the record, because he actually understands them.

So don't listen to the baying and carping lunatics of the extremist fringe. Buy the book. If you don't think it's credible, readable, and an important contribution to our understanding of the jihadi phenomenon, give me a call.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars No footnotes, conspiracy theory-filled, Islamiphobic nonsense, April 28, 2009

By	Gareth "conspiracy theorist critic" (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews

Bodansky is known for advancing conspiracy theories that link the (secular) Turkish MIT intelligence, with the (Sunni) Pakistanis, with the (Shiite) Hezbeollah and Al Qaeda (stateless Wahhabis) all sleeping together to support a nefarious Chechen (Sufi highlander) plot against innocent Russia. It might dupe the Islamiphobes or those who couldn't spot Chechnya on a map until 9/11, but it fails to impress those who see Chechens as humans and knew this land previously. Bodansky's book has not a single footnote to support its wild theories linking the Chechens to every evil Muslim in the world. Bodansky's 'Axis of Evil' style 'sweep them all up' into one evil plot technique is a massacre of fact and serves only to provide fodder for those who do not know the secular, Sovietized, Sufi Chechens. He should have worked for the Bush administration when it was trying to link Al Qaeda to Baathist-secular Iraq! For a real history of Chechnnya see Khassan Baiev's The Oath and don't bother with this wild, anti-Chechen propaganda volume by Bodansky.