Customer Reviews

Usama Bin Laden's Al-Qaida: Profile of a Terrorist Network (Terrorism Library Series)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I am Just an average American and not anything more than the average reader but I can deduce facts, this book brings us factual information about the terrorist. I recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in the subject, but remember this is not a fantasy of entertainment piece, it simply brings us the account.
Another Good Book that goes into some detail about the future of terrorism and did predict this terror by saying they would blow up the buildings and use bio war is Karl Mark Maddox's SB 1 or God

As a professional who deals with this subject matter for a living, I must say I was extremely disappointed in this book. It contains very little information and no analysis whatsoever, and is neither "detailed" nor "informative". All of the information in this book (and much more) can be found on the Internet for free after an hour's worth of searching, and information seems to have been taken from easily available open sources with no value added by the authors. For those who want to learn about bin Laden and al-Qa'ida, I would recommend reading PBS's excellent website "Hunting bin Laden" or transcripts from al-Qa'ida trials (the 98 embassy bombing trial and the millenium bombing plot) at Findlaw's website. For those who want a book on the subject, check out "The New Jackals" by Simon Reeve or "Holy War, Inc." by Peter Bergen. Both are done by journalists rather than scholars, but are informative and interesting reading. For a more scholarly discussion of terrorism in general, see "Inside Terrorism", a great introduction to the subject by RAND's Bruce Hoffman, or "Origins of Terrorism", edited by Walter Reich.

If you are looking for some insight into the history of terrorist networks and what motivites these peaople then keep looking. If you are looking for a short book of facts about al-Qaida then this is the book for you. I found this book extremely dissappointing. For one it is a mere 52 pages. (excluding the bibliography and long appenices). The rest of the book is little more than a list of facts. ie 27 pages listing known or suspected members with a brief paragraph about each and 15 pages of a timeline listing several dates with a sentance or 2 about each.

If you pay attention to the news, read newspapers and/or news magazines then this book will add little to your existing understanding of this group. The book does a very good job of detailing the minutia of the al-Qaida membership. Inasmuch as the membership list is important, maybe to the CIA, the minutia was a lost effort because most of the membership biographies were very short and cryptic at best. I bought the book expecting that it would articulate the group's activity, financiers, State sponsors, directions, goals and ideological underpinnings. The title lead me to that conclusion. The book does not do this and for that reason I was dissapointed.

The only high point of the book, for me, was the re-print of bin Laden's speeches. Pass on this book.

When I saw co-author Michael Swetnam on a cable news show as a result of his authorship of this book I was shocked. If the network producers had actually read a copy of this book, they would have discovered that it is a mere "picture book" of the top, well-known criminals in the al-Qaeda organization. (Remember the "face book" you got of your freshman classmates when you went to college?) The pictures of Mohammad Atef (now dead), Dr. Ayman Zawahiri and others are accompanied by only a tiny caption of biographical information, often not more than a half or quarter page in length, which is printed under each picture. You can get more information about these guys from a newspaper or a Middle East journal than from this book. The "face book" portion is followed by a one page listing of other terrorist groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad with whom al-Qaeda is on friendly terms. The chapter on al-Qaeda finances has footnotes to publications like Time magazine and the Boston Globe. .... The last half of the book is simply a reprinting of some court documents (all publicly available). I thought the book a disappointment. I think readers, and the networks, should go back to the Big Three who still tell us the most about Bin Laden and his doings: Yossef Bodansky, Anthony Dennis and Peter Bergen. Each has a book out on Bin Laden and every one of those books I would rate more highly than this title so reader beware!

This recent, well-researched book is an excellent resource and analysis of Usama Bin Laden's worldwide terrorist network. Given the tragic events of September 11, 2001, the publication is a critical guide for those who seek to understand the roots and possible threats of this terrorist organization.

The objective of this book is (pg. viii) "to provide an easily accessible reference for academics, policy makers, the press and other interested individuals" and it succeeds in this task. It includes biographies of most of the Al-Qaida members listed on the October 2001 FBI list of 22 most wanted terrorists (most of whom are listed by the FBI as Al-Qaida members!), but it actually gives thumbnail biographies of 32 leaders and members of the organization, with photos of 20 of them. It also lists 33 associates or former associates of `The Base.' ----- Though this 160 page soft cover book is extremely detailed and informative, I found Appendix 1-A, the full text of the 1996 "Declaration of War Against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places" to be an especially interesting document, since it explains the Al-Qaida rationale quite explicitly and clearly. Sadly, the Al-Qaida analysis displays quite a lot of perceptiveness about the cheerless situation of Islam, and America's economic interests in the area, not to mention the role of co-opted secularist national elites in the region. The distorting interpretative effect of the fundamentalist theological worldview is fascinating, as this document sometimes describes our world as if in a funhouse mirror, recognizable but twisted into odd shapes. Frightening is the almost casual leap from Al-Qaida's call to jihad against the West's influence to terrorism and the destruction of innocent civilian life! ----- Unfortunately this book was NOT carefully edited. The "Declaration of War" document was lifted from a web page with no editing. It is riddled with typos, and one section appears twice: the last three lines on page 13 and all of page 14 are duplicates. Likewise Appendix 1-B, "Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders" is truncated, ending in midsentence: "The crusader forces becomes the main cause of our disastrous condition, particularly in the economical aspect of it due " [That's how it ends!] The edited testimony from `U.S.A vs. Usama bin Laden' in appendices 4A, 4B, 4C, and 4D are all cited as http://www.cryptome.org but this is not very complete. For example, the full URL for 4D is actually http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-13.htm . Lastly, it was interesting to note that the following error shows both on the web page and in the book: Quoting Ambassador Prudence Bushnell about the bombing of the embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, she is cited in the trial transcript as saying: "And I asked the driver to take me to a hotel rather than a hotel, because I very much needed to get to work and I was afraid if we went to a hospital it would just take too long..." It would be interesting to find out how hospital (the obvious word) became hotel in the second instance. --- I think the above examples clearly show that this book was NOT carefully edited. Too bad, since it undermines its credibility somewhat... but it is still well worth reading!

This is a great factual book and should be presented as such. Thoroughly documented. A series of valuable facts that, unfortunately, are not correlated to each other. The aim of the writers is not clear. Except maybe for some web sites, this "fact sheet" gives nothing more than what is broadcasted every day in the media. The choice of documents is not explained. A big minus: many typographical errors. The publisher, not the authors is to blame for that.

While this book predominantly focuses on the middle-eastern terror networks of bin Laden & Co., it does provide an extensive inside look behind the scenes of the workings of these organizations. Excellent research and detailed analyses make it an interesting read as vital information is communicated, including a portrait of the mindset of Osama and his friends. It's an excellent resource on the subject!

The book enables the reader to have a wealth of information on Bin Laden and Al-Qaida: origin, sources of money and training, incidents and threats. After reading this book it seems clear that the U.S. will be justified in taking whatever actions are necessary to reduce the dangers that Bin Laden and his supporters
represent.