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

Yossef Bodansky (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 26, 2007

Yossef Bodansky is one of the most respected-and best-informed-experts on radical Islamism in the world today. In "Chechen Jihad", Bodansky draws on previously unseen intelligence from his insider sources, to offer the most comprehensive-and startling-portrait of the Chechenization phenomenon and what it means for the war on terror. As he reveals, the final years of US-Soviet relations left Chechnya as a fertile breeding ground for the mujahadin, and in the past decade a combination of militant native Chechen anti-Americans, anti-Russian agitators, and Middle Eastern jihadis 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 movement." Authoritative in its detail, chilling in its implications, "Chechen Jihad" is a book no one with an interest in the future of the West should miss.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Yossef Bodansky, has been the director of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare for ten years. He is also the longtime Director of Research at the International Strategic Studies Association. The author of nine books, he has written frequently for numerous periodicals, including Global Affairs, Jane's Defence Weekly, Defense and Foreign Affairs: Strategic Policy, and Business Week. He is a former senior consultant for the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Department of State. Bodansky has also been a visiting scholar in the Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies.

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
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,260,246 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 24 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

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

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.

2.0 out of 5 stars Heavy on details..., January 8, 2012

By 

Prabal Guha Biswas "hmmm" (don't worry, I shall find you) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Chechen Jihad: Al Qaeda's Training Ground and the Next Wave of Terror (Paperback)

The first half is better than the second. As is evident from the title it is about the problem in Chechnya. I cannot dispute any of the facts written in the books. But from my personal experience in Soviet Russia, the Chechen people and other of the same ilk were (are) treated with great disdain by ordinary Russian citizens. The racism angle is not mentioned. The view is lopsided favoring the Russians; you have to give a balanced view nowadays without hiding anything from both sides. And then let the reader take the call, you ( author) may not take a call that is so one-sided. This cannot be the mark of a successful writer.

4.0 out of 5 stars Highly relevant, a bit too detailed, October 3, 2011

By 

Walter (ELGIN, IL, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Chechen Jihad: Al Qaeda's Training Ground and the Next Wave of Terror (Paperback)

A long and almost too detailed history and review of the background, development and activities of radical Islam in the Caucasus region. While the narrative can be tedious at points, the details have relevance beyond Chechnya or the Russian Federation, as this book shows how they are thoroughly intertwined with Islamist organizations and developments elsewhere. This book shows a largely unrecognized part of the background behind current conflicts and how they are tied to other events.