Inside the Jihad: My Life with Al Qaeda [Paperback]

Omar Nasiri (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 8, 2008

Between 1994 and 2000, Omar Nasiri worked as a secret agent for Europe’s top foreign intelligence services-including France’s DGSE (Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure), and Britain’s MI5 and MI6. From the netherworld of Islamist cells in Belgium, to the training camps of Afghanistan, to the radical mosques of London, he risked his life to defeat the emerging global network that the West would come to know as Al Qaeda. Now, for the first time, Nasiri shares the story of his life-a life balanced precariously between the world of Islamic jihadists and the spies who pursue them. As an Arab and a Muslim, he was able to infiltrate the rigidly controlled Afghan training camps, where he encountered men who would later be known as the most-wanted terrorists on earth: Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi, Abu Zubayda, and Abu Khabab al-Masri. Sent back to Europe with instructions to form a sleeper cell, Nasiri became a conduit for messages going back and forth between Al Qaeda’s top recruiter in Pakistan and London’s radical cleric Abu Qatada.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Inside the Jihad is the astonishing, well-told story of Omar Nasiri (a pseudonym), who penetrated al-Qaeda's training camps in Afghanistan in the mid 1990s as a spy for France's intelligence services. Al Qaeda defectors...have provided accounts of the Afghan camps, but nothing available publicly approaches the level of detail that Nasiri gives here." -- Washington Post, November 17, 2006

"Inside the Jihad reads like a John le Carre novel. It is replete with tales of phony passports, envelopes stuffed with cash and cloak-and-daggar meetings...Mr. Nasiri's account of the camps is detailed and chilling." -- New York Times, November 17, 2006

"A good read...the real value of Nasiri's memoir lies in the insight into the minds of young, mostly European Muslims." -- Middle East Quarterly

"It is a fascinating story of a man who says he betrayed his brothers to the police and then had contact with senior al Qaeda leaders at a terror training camp in Afghanistan -- all the while spying for French, British and German intelligence" -- CNN.com

From the Publisher

"A chillingly detailed portrait of life inside the Afghan training camps. Omar Nasiri's memoir offers a unique insider's perspective on the crucial years during which a loosely connected group of regional Islamist movements coalesced into Al Qaeda's global jihad." --Ahmed Rashid, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Taliban

"A terrific book. Omar Nasiri offers a groundbreaking account of the process by which young men became mujahidin. His description of life inside the Afghan training camps is more complete than any intelligence we had available to us in the 1990s. It indicates a level of professionalism within the camps that we were only able to infer from the fragmentary accounts available to us-- and which policymakers dismissed at the time as CIA scare-mongering. As a micro-level description of the whole training process within the camps, Nasiri's account has, I believe, no peer in the publications of the American intelligence community." --Michael Scheuer, former head of the CIA's Osama bin Laden Unit and author of Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books (January 8, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0465023894
• ISBN-13: 978-0465023899
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (40 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #103,516 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #17 in Books > History > Asia > Pakistan
  • #98 in Books > History > Asia > Afghanistan

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fast paced thriller!, November 30, 2006

By 

Mike Beri - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Inside the Jihad: My Life with Al Qaeda (Hardcover)

Inside the Jihad is a thrilling read from start to finish. Omar Nasiri didn't start out in the radical Islamic movement as a spy at all. He also didn't become a spy because he felt it was the right thing to do, he did it to save his life.

Omar's life wasn't normal for anyone, European or Arab. He was born in Morocco and when he was 5 his family moved to be with their father who had been working in Belgium for two years. However Omar had TB and was placed in a sanitarium. A sanitarium ran by Catholic nuns. Then at ten he went to live in a castle with 25 other foster boys. He did see his family rarely but he grew up westernized, having implications later on. The man who ran the castle, Edourd, took Omar under his wing. This included allowing Omar to shoot guns in the range provided he does his homework. However the one time he lied about completing his homework so he could shoot, Edourd found out, and said something to Omar he never forgot. Edourd said in anger that he would never amount to anything and Omar vowed to prove him wrong. He vowed to prove anyone wrong who ever underestimated him.


Omar then moved in with his family who by then returned to Morocco. He wasn't close to his family but then did something a good Muslim son shouldn't do. He stood up and assaulted his father after he gave one too many beatings to his mother. His mother then divorced and moved with the family back to Belgium. Omar stayed in Morocco.

Soon enough he was making money as the go-between for hashish dealers and the tourists. He learned the skills necessary to avoid arrest and spot buyers and sellers. These skills would eventually allow him entry to the camps.

After his brother brought him back to Belgium he soon learned that his mother's house was the hub for the GIA in Europe. This is where Al Ansar was published and spread around the world. He soon put his skills to use in obtaining bullets for the GIA members and soon enough was buying weapons, detonators, and even explosives. After discovering to his horror that the arsenals he was buying were being kept in his house he made a mistake that sent him into the arms of the DGSE (French Secret Service). After helping the DGSE he was almost sent to jail with the rest the GIA cell, but by his wits he managed to stay out of jail. By way of another mistake he also wanted out of Europe. Soon enough we was sent to Turkey, alone, to somehow find his way into Afghanistan. The DGSE had little hope of seeing Omar again. Omar would prove them wrong as well.

Before a flight to Pakistan, he used his skills to identify a Jihadist and made a connection that within weeks would allow Omar to enter the training camps.

Once at the camps the training was physically exhausting and thoroughly extensive. Weapons training involved pistols, surface to air missiles, tanks, explosives, mortars and everything in between. Everything was drilling into the trainee's heads. The scariest part was the do-it yourself explosives recipes and detonators. The manual Omar gave to MI5 taught the intelligence explosives "experts" a thing or two. When it came to religious instruction the splitting of hairs was absurd to the extreme. The Koran says you can't kill innocents. But let's say, for example, that that innocent was helping a crusader kill Muslims, fair game. Even if that innocent is a child PRAYS for his crusader father! This absurd contradiction is what kept Omar from falling into the lure of the brotherhood of the camps. The lure of the camps was so strong that Omar wanted to go to Chechnya to fulfill his "Jihad". Thankfully the terrorists saw that Omar's westernized behavior was perfect to send him to Europe. Then he was on his way to England. A trained killer, a Jihadist sent to kill and main innocents, but this Jihadist was "our" Jihadist, one whose knowledge would soon help send some of the top Al-Qaeda members to jail.

Omar spent two years in "Londonistan" and was mishandled by MI5. British intelligence was concerned with possible attacks in the UK. At that time London was the hub of Islamic Extremism with no part on MI5's part to do much of anything. Admittedly this did change but not for years. This allowed the extremists to meet, recruit, and plan attacks, but as long as the attacks weren't in the UK, no problem from a British intelligence perspective. In London Omar Nasiri became a go-between for messages from Al-Qaeda's top recruiter in Pakistan and the racial cleric, Abu Qatada. However he was soon told to forget about Abu Qatada and focus on the Finsbury Park mosque with its firebrand cleric, Abu Hamza. Abu Qatada was by far the more dangerous (and smart) but Abu Hamza was a "barking dog" (Omar's words) and was thought more of a threat. History would prove Omar was right as Abu Qatada is now in British prison awaiting extradition to Jordon where he was convicted in absentia of terrorist attacks. Omar also told MI5 of a big fish he saw with Abu Qatada named Ali Touchent, one of the most wanted men in France for masterminding attacks there. But British "intelligence" lost him in a café, months later a bomb tore though a Paris metro with all the hallmarks of Ali Touchent. His 2 years in London abruptly ended when a mistake from his past caught up to him.
Omar was then sent to Germany. He was then caught in political infighting within Germany's intelligence services. The Germans gave him a passport in his original name with no way of starting a new, safe, life. But he was also not given papers that would allow him to work legally. Omar was soon demoralized and fed up after months with little money and a wife to support so he quit. Omar currently works in dead-end jobs with little money to help his family.

He risked his life to write this book, but he did. He did it to help his fellow Muslims realize the dangers of extremism and to stop them becoming like us. Omar meant that if they fight like us they will become like us, and then there will be nothing left worth fighting for. That is his Jihad. He has no sympathies for us whatsoever.

Omar Nasiri has written a fast-paced book on the inner workings of Islamic Extremism and the intelligence services who *try* to stop them.
A book you can't put down!

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Should it be trusted?, May 2, 2007

By 

Anthony Charles Peek (Carrollton, GA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Inside the Jihad: My Life with Al Qaeda (Hardcover)

Nasiri has definitely lived an amazing life as a spy for European anti-terrorism groups. He is also amazingly lucky. Everything seems to go his way, from being able to get into an Afghanistan jihadist camp by a chance encounter at an airport (after a pitstop in Pakistan). He blows his cover to two major people in the Islamic underground (and who happen to be later thrown in jail), but no one ever connects him to it (despite using their name to help him get close to some major people in the movement).

What strikes me the most about Nasiri is his own narcissism. He constantly argues with his handlers for not treating him with respect-by doing things such as asking too many questions. He gives out information that is very beneficial, but at the same time delivers a car bomb, but does not give out the name of the elderly man he gives it to because he is worried about his well-being. The car bomb kills people in Morocco and while Nasiri expresses guilt about the incident-he seems to miss the point that he could have stopped it from happening all along.

While I think Nasiri is telling the truth for the most part and his story is intriguing, in the back of my mind I keep on wondering how much of his story is true.

and I will leave with this one final thought. He talks about how when captured, a jihadist should always embellish the infomation to scare the opposition. He gives the example of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi giving false info about the Hussein-Al Qaeda connection. While Nasiri is not technically captured, he does feel that the West has captured the Muslim world and culture and has hurt it more then helped it. Nasiri might not be the best Muslim in the world, but it is what he believes and does want to defend it if it is attacked....could Nasiri be doing the same in his story?

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Engaging read, outlines Jihad culture, March 14, 2007

By 

Dave Buckley (Beacon, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Inside the Jihad: My Life with Al Qaeda (Hardcover)

This is not the strategic analysis of Jihad, not a religious text, but it is a great story about one man's life inside and outside of Jihad over the years. I found it exciting to read and actually felt the author's discomforts and risks.

If you are interested in learning a high level analysis of modern Jihad, militant Islam, read Imperial Hubris. This book partners well with that backdrop and steps inside the actual world of the training camps and breathes life into the personal struggles faced by many young Muslims.