A Terrorist's Call to Global Jihad: Deciphering Abu Musab al-Suri's Islamic Jihad Manifesto [Paperback]

Jim Lacey (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 5, 2008

The U.S. counterintelligence community identifies Abu Musab al-Suri as the most important theorist of the global Islamic jihad and considers his manifesto to be the most important strategic document produced by al Qaida or any jihadi organization in more than a decade. But to Americans his 1,600-page manuscript largely consists of incomprehensible, impenetrable Islamic scholarship. With this publication, defense analyst Jim Lacey delivers a meaningful distillation of al-Suri's Call to Global Islamic Jihad, a work that has been called the Mein Kampf of the movement. This project is sponsored by the United States Joint Forces Command.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Jim Lacey is the author of Takedown: The 3rd Infantry Division's Twenty-One Day Assault on Baghdad (978-1-59114-458-8) Hardcover, Naval Institute Press, 2007.

Product Details

• Paperback: 204 pages
• Publisher: Naval Institute Press (March 5, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1591144620
• ISBN-13: 978-1591144625
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #612,886 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

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "State of the Union Address" for the Jihadist movement, May 11, 2008

By 

J. Rudy "Major, USAF" (Fairfax, VA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Terrorist's Call to Global Jihad: Deciphering Abu Musab al-Suri's Islamic Jihad Manifesto (Paperback)

With the release of "A Terrorists Call to Global Jihad", the real story on the Global War on Terror has left the secretive world of the intelligence agencies and is now made available for the mainstream public. Jim Lacey, a former journalist and Army infantry officer, provides the reader with an easy-to-read translation of Abu Musab al-Suri's Islamic jihad manifesto.

Abu Musab al-Suri is recognized by the US intelligence community as the most influential modern theorist of the Islamic jihadi movement. He began his career in the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, fighting for the overthrow of the apostate government. Forced into exile, he eventually made his way to Afghanistan where he met the infamous Osama Bin Laden in the late 1980's. It was here in the training camps of Afghanistan, where the al Qaida organization formed the relationships with the nationally focused jihadi movements. The university educated al-Suri began writing of these experiences, and in 2004 he published his 1600-page "Islamic Call for Global Jihad" on the internet.

The "Islamic Call for Global Jihad" could roughly be equated to the President's annual State of the Union Address. Al-Suri's insider perspective delivers a candid, if somewhat distorted, assessment of the threats facing the Islamic jihadi movement. He begins his tome, "At the onset of the twenty-first century, the Islamic ummah [community of believers] is enduring American-Zionist, Crusader-western invasions, helped by the cooperation of hypocritical governments that control the Arab and Islamic world."

Akin to establishing street credibility within a gang, al-Suri details his contributions to various jihadi efforts across the western world. With his credentials established, he moves on to discuss the three major issues facing the jihadi movement: loss of religion; loss of worldly power; and the enemies control and tyranny over all aspects of Muslim's lives.

On the first point, al-Suri is concerned that the current generation lack the religious foundations to carry out true jihad. With this lack of religious understanding, he considers the fighters to be no better than common criminals. By reading this opinion, the reader could be led to believe there are serious rifts among the members of the mujahideen.

The second point is directly tied to the dispersal of oil revenues. He asserts "we know the true price of one barrel of crude oil is $260 per barrel." That accusation against the west for not paying this fair price and the further allegation of the Arab governments falsifying the amount of oil shipped, he deduces these economic policies are keeping the 1.25 billion Muslims in the world in poverty. Al-Suri may be a college-educated mechanical engineer, but it appears he may have missed his macro-economics class.

Finally, he asserts the Muslim nations remain in power because they have allied themselves with the corrupt American-Zionist governments. It is on this point that the Islamic jihadist movement and al-Qaida diverge. The numerous jihadist movements desire the creation of a pure Islamic state by overthrowing their own nation's government. Al Qaida's strategy is to "remove the head of the snake" by overthrowing the American government, which in turn will cause the demise of the apostasy governments in the Middle East.

In subsequent chapters, Al-Suri provides an after-action review for each of the national jihadi movements. He claims that the local nation crackdowns as part of the American-led war on terror has made significant headway in stopping these revolutions. The main goal of these chapters is to record the contributions of the significant martyr operations.

To summarize his writings, al-Suri provides the "Intellectual and Doctrinal Foundations of the Jihadist Movement". After critiquing the success and failures of the previous efforts, he provides the strategic vision for the next generation of jihadist movement. His final chapter discusses how to involve the media in dispersing the message of jihad.

The edited version of the book was an easy read, which should not be surprising considering the intended audience for the book is the next generation of mujahideen. Objectively speaking, al-Suri's book follows the standard pattern of a persuasive speaking that you may find in any church on Sunday morning -- provide examples of errant behavior paired with the path to salvation. However, his perception of history and global economics is distorted and naïve. The book certainly highlights the violence and religious fervor necessary for the revolution, but without a strategic economic vision, they would merely replace one national leader with another and would fail to address the second issue addressed earlier in the book.

"A Terrorists Call to Global Jihad" offers the reader with an unprecedented look inside the jihadist movement. Jim Lacey, a renowned defense analyst, has condensed the original 1600-page document into a digestible 200-page book focusing on the key points. He certainly did well in meeting his goal. This book should be required reading for every American to gain understanding of this most recent threat to our country.