Download or read book Al Qaeda in Its Own Words written by Gilles Kepel and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2008 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To reveal the inner workings of Al Qaeda, this book collects and annotates key texts of the major figures from whom the movement has drawn its beliefs and direction. There are excerpts from the writings of Azzabdallah Azzam, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama Bin Laden and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
Download or read book The Rise and Fall of Al Qaeda written by Fawaz A. Gerges and published by OUP USA. This book was released on 2011-09-14 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author re-evaluates the threat posed by Al-Qaeda following a decade of war.
Download or read book Beyond Terror and Martyrdom written by Gilles Kepel and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-07-01 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since 2001, two dominant worldviews have clashed in the global arena: a neoconservative nightmare of an insidious Islamic terrorist threat to civilized life, and a jihadist myth of martyrdom through the slaughter of infidels. Across the airwaves and on the ground, an ill-defined and uncontrollable war has raged between these two opposing scenarios. Deadly images and threats—from the televised beheading of Western hostages to graphic pictures of torture at Abu Ghraib, from the destruction wrought by suicide bombers in London and Madrid to civilian deaths at the hands of American occupation forces in Iraq—have polarized populations on both sides of this divide. Yet, as the noted Middle East scholar and commentator Gilles Kepel demonstrates, President Bush’s War on Terror masks a complex political agenda in the Middle East—enforcing democracy, accessing Iraqi oil, securing Israel, and seeking regime change in Iran. Osama bin Laden’s call for martyrs to rise up against the apostate and hasten the dawn of a universal Islamic state papers over a fractured, fragmented Islamic world that is waging war against itself. Beyond Terror and Martyrdom sounds the alarm to the West and to Islam that both of these exhausted narratives are bankrupt—neither productive of democratic change in the Middle East nor of unity in Islam. Kepel urges us to escape the ideological quagmire of terrorism and martyrdom and explore the terms of a new and constructive dialogue between Islam and the West, one for which Europe, with its expanding and restless Muslim populations, may be the proving ground.
Download or read book The Secret History of al Qaeda written by Abdel Bari Atwan and published by Saqi. This book was released on 2012-07-15 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the last ten years, journalist and al-Qa'ida expert Abdel Bari Atwan has cultivated uniquely well-placed sources and amassed a wealth of information about al-Qa'ida's origins, masterminds and plans for the future. Atwan reveals how al-Qa'ida's radical departure from the classic terrorist/guerrilla blueprint has enabled it to outpace less adaptable efforts to neutralize it. The fanaticism of its fighters, and their willingness to kill and be killed, are matched by the leadership's opportunistic recruitment strategies and sophisticated understanding of psychology, media, and new technology - including the use of the internet for training, support, and communications. Atwan shows that far from committing acts of violence randomly and indiscriminately, al-Qa'ida attacks targets according to a decisive design underwritten by unwavering patience. He also argues that events in Iraq and Saudi Arabia are watershed moments in the group's evolution that are making it more dangerous by the day, as it refines and appropriates the concept of jihad and makes the suicide bomber a permanent feature of a global holy war. While Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri remain al-Qa'ida's figureheads, Atwan identifies a new kind of leader made possible by its horizontal chain of command, epitomized by the brutal Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi in Iraq and the bombers of London, Madrid, Amman, Bali, and elsewhere. Scholarly, analytical, objective, it is also intensely readable, being by far the best book on the subject.' -- Tony Benn 'This is a must-read book for anyone interested in understanding our increasingly scary world.' -- Gavin Esler 'What shines out ... is a profound desire to investigate and reveal the truth. Intelligent and informative.' -- Jason Burke, Guardian 'Deeply researched, well reported and full of interesting and surprising analyses. It demands to be read.' -- Peter Bergen, author of Holy War, Inc
Download or read book What Does Al Qaeda Want written by and published by North Atlantic Books. This book was released on 2004-11-23 with total page 116 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the aftermath of the September 11th attacks, al-Qaeda has become the most infamous terrorist organization in history. While their actions are deplorable, it remains a populist and idealist movement—and one that continues to spread. Despite heavy media coverage, most people are unaware of the group's ultimate goals. Sampling from actual al-Qaeda texts, this is al-Qaeda in its own words, rather than another interpretation (which often emphasizes the inflammatory religious rhetoric) offered by the Bush administration and other factions of the Western world. Introductions and commentary provide the historical context necessary to understand fully the interconnection between the religious, social, and political issues that led to the emergence of Osama bin Laden and his jihad against the West. These primary sources enable readers to discern the fundamental convictions underlying the group's demands, and help answer the question, "What does al Qaeda want?"
Download or read book Al Qaeda written by Paul L. Williams and published by Alpha Books. This book was released on 2002 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the history of Islam and the cultural, political, and socio-economic forces that have cultivated an environment that nurtures terrorism and idolizes its leaders.
Download or read book The Al Qaeda Reader written by Raymond Ibrahim and published by Crown. This book was released on 2007-08-07 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The global war on terror is not just a military conflict but a war of ideas. Indeed it is in some respects primarily an ideological struggle. Yet it is a war we cannot win without a broader understanding of al-Qaeda's goals and motives. What do our enemies believe? What motivates their war against the West? What is their vision of the ideal Islamic society? Surprisingly, more than five years after 9/11, there is very little understanding of these questions. Despite our tendency to dismiss Islamic extremism as profoundly irrational, al-Qaeda is not without a coherent body of beliefs. Like other totalitarian movements, the movement’s leaders have rationalized their brutality in a number of published treatises. Now, for the first time, The Al Qaeda Reader gathers together the essential texts and documents that trace the origin, history, and evolution of the ideas of al-Qaeda founders Ayman al-Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden. This extraordinary collection of the key texts of the al-Qaeda movement—including incendiary materials never before translated into English—lays bare the minds, motives, messages, and ultimate goals of an enemy bent on total victory. Al-Qaeda’s chilling ideology calls for a relentless jihad against non-Muslim “infidels,” repudiates democracy in favor of Islamic law, stresses the importance of martyrdom, and mocks the notion of “moderate” Islam. Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of these works is how grounded they are in the traditional sources of Islamic theology: the Koran and the teachings of the Prophet. The founders of al-Qaeda use these sources as powerful weapons of persuasion, reminding followers (and would-be recruits) that Muhammad and his warriors spread Islam through the power of the sword and that the Koran is not merely allegory or history but literal truth that commands all Muslims to action. In addition to laying bare al-Qaeda’s ultimate motives, The Al Qaeda Reader includes the organization’s propagandist speeches, which are directed primarily at Americans, Europeans, and Iraqis. Here, al-Qaeda’s many "official" accusations against the West are meticulously delineated, from standard complaints such as the Palestinian issue and Iraq to wholly unexpected ones concerning the U.S.’s exploitation of women and the environment. Taken together, the Theology and Propaganda sections of this volume reveal the most comprehensive picture of al-Qaeda to date. They also highlight the double-speak of bin Laden and Zawahiri, who often say one thing to Muslims in their religious treatises ("We must hate and fight the West because Islam commands it") and another in their propaganda directed at the West ("The West is the aggressor and we are fighting back merely in self-defense"). Westerners from across the political spectrum will be fascinated and enlightened by The Al Qaeda Reader’s insights into the nature of Islamic texts and the ways in which al-Qaeda has used these texts to manufacture hatred against our civilization and our way of life.
Download or read book His Own Words written by and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2006 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Al Qaeda second in command Dr. Ayman Zawahiri is often referred to as the "brains of Al Qaeda." This book translates into English the writings of Zawahiri, as well as the post-September 11 communiques of the Egyptian physician turned terrorist. It includes a complete translation of his December 2001 book "Knights Under the Prophet's Banner." If you want to know what makes this Al Qaeda leader tick, this is the book to read.
Download or read book The Search for Al Qaeda written by Bruce Riedel and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2010-06-01 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Al Qaeda is the most dangerous terrorist movement in history. Yet most people in the West know very little about it, or their view is clouded by misperceptions and half truths. This widely acclaimed book fills this gap with a comprehensive analysis of al Qaeda—the origins, leadership, ideology, and strategy of the terrorist network that brought down the Twin Towers and continues to threaten us today. Bruce Riedel draws on decades of insider experience—he was actually in the White House during the September 11 attacks—in profiling the four most important figures in the al Qaeda movement: Usama bin Laden, ideologue and spokesman Ayman Zawahiri, former leader of al Qaeda in Iraq Abu Musaib al Zarqawi (killed in 2006), and Mullah Omar, its Taliban host. These profiles provide the base from which Riedel delivers a much clearer understanding of al Qaeda and its goals, as well as what must be done to counter and defeat this most dangerous menace.
Download or read book Al Qaeda the Islamic State and the Global Jihadist Movement written by Daniel Byman and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2015 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Founded as the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan, Al Qaeda achieved a degree of international notoriety with a series of spectacular attacks in the 1990s; however, it was the dramatic assaults on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 9/11 that truly launched Al Qaeda onto the global stage. The attacks endowed the organization with world-historical importance and provoked an overwhelming counterattack by the United States and other western countries. Within a year of 9/11, the core of Al Qaeda had been chased out of Afghanistan and into a variety of refuges across the Muslim world. Splinter groups and franchised offshoots were active in the 2000s in countries like Pakistan, Iraq, and Yemen, but by early 2011, after more than a decade of relentless counterterrorism efforts by the United States and other Western military and intelligence services, most felt that Al Qaeda's moment had passed.
Download or read book Al Qaeda in Europe written by Lorenzo Vidino and published by Prometheus Books. This book was released on 2009-12-04 with total page 403 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written by an expert at The Investigative Project, a counterterrorism institute and America's largest private data-gathering center on militant Islamic activities, this text fills a critical gap in the understanding of the new threats posed by Islamist terrorism.
Download or read book The Looming Tower written by Lawrence Wright and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2006-08-08 with total page 498 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER • PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • A “heart-stopping account of the events leading up to 9/11” (The New York Times Book Review), this definitive history explains in gripping detail the growth of Islamic fundamentalism, the rise of al-Qaeda, and the intelligence failures that culminated in the attacks on the World Trade Center. In gripping narrative that spans five decades, Lawrence Wright re-creates firsthand the transformation of Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri from incompetent and idealistic soldiers in Afghanistan to leaders of the most successful terrorist group in history. He follows FBI counterterrorism chief John O’Neill as he uncovers the emerging danger from al-Qaeda in the 1990s and struggles to track this new threat. Packed with new information and a deep historical perspective, The Looming Tower is a sweeping, unprecedented history of the long road to September 11.
Download or read book Al Qaeda and What It Means to be Modern written by John Gray and published by Faber & Faber. This book was released on 2015-02-12 with total page 118 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'The suicide warriors who attacked Washington and New York on September 11th, 2001, did more than kill thousands of civilians and demolish the World Trade Center. They destroyed the West's ruling myth.' So John Gray begins this short, powerful book on the belief that has dominated our minds for a century and a half - the idea that we are all, more or less, becoming modern and that as we become modern we will become more alike, and at the same time more familiar and more reasonable. Nothing could be further from the truth, Gray argues. Al Qaeda is a product of modernity and of globalisation, and it will not be the last group to use the products of the modern world in its own monstrous way. Gray pulls up by the roots the myth that the human condition can be remade by science and progress or political engineering. He describes with mordant irony the rise of Positivists, the strange sect that put science and technology at the centre of the cult and developed a religion of humanity. Through their influence on economists, politicians and biologists, they still powerfully affect the way we think. Gray looks at the various attempts to remake humanity, from the Bolshevik and Nazi disasters to the utopian experiments of modern radical Islam and the dreams of the prophets of globalisation. And he gives a scathing account of the real sources of conflict in the world, of American power and its illusions, and of the ways in which cultures will resist the reshaping we might wish on them.
Download or read book Messages to the World written by Osama bin Laden and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2020-05-05 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite the saturation of global media coverage, Osama bin Laden's own writings have been curiously absent from analysis of the "war on terror." Over the last ten years, bin Laden has issued a series of carefully tailored public statements, from interviews with Western and Arabic journalists to faxes and video recordings. These texts supply evidence crucial to an understanding of the bizarre mix of Quranic scholarship, CIA training, punctual interventions in Gulf politics and messianic anti-imperialism that has formed the programmatic core of Al Qaeda. In bringing together the various statements issued under bin Laden's name since 1994, this volume forms part of a growing discourse that seeks to demythologize the terrorist network. Newly translated from the Arabic, annotated with a critical introduction by Islamic scholar Bruce Lawrence, this collection places the statements in their religious, historical and political context. It shows how bin Laden's views draw on and differ from other strands of radical Islamic thought; it also demonstrates how his arguments vary in degrees of consistency, and how his evasions concerning the true nature and extent of his own group, and over his own role in terrorist attacks, have contributed to the perpetuation of his personal mythology.
Download or read book The History of Terrorism written by Gérard Chaliand and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2016-08-23 with total page 536 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in English in 2007 under title: The history of terrorism: from antiquity to al Qaeda.
Download or read book Al Qaeda s Armies written by Jonathan Schanzer and published by Washington Institute for Near East Policy. This book was released on 2005 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Using never-before published material, Arabic language sources, and personal interviews from the Middle East, Schanzer examines affiliates in Egypt, Lebanon, Algeria, Yemen and Iraq. The author also shares research from a fact-finding mission in Iraq, where he interviewed al-Qaeda fighters and one of Saddam Hussein's former intelligence officers."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Download or read book Al Qaeda written by Jason Burke and published by ePenguin. This book was released on 2007-08-30 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To most in the West, 'al-Qaeda' is seen as a byword for terror: a deadly, highly organised fanatical group masterminded by Osama bin Laden. But does this tell the whole truth? Prize-winning journalist Jason Burke has spent a decade reporting from the heart of the Middle East and gaining unprecedented access to the world of radical Islam. Now, drawing on his frontline experience of recent events in Iraq and Afghanistan, on secret documents and astonishing interviews with intelligence officers, militants, mujahideen commanders and bin Laden's associates, he reveals the full story of al-Qaeda - and demolishes the myths that underpin the 'war on terror'. Burke demonstrates that in fact 'al-Qaeda' is merely a convenient label applied by the West to a far broader - and thus more dangerous - phenomenon of Islamic militancy, and shows how eradicating a single figure or group will do nothing to combat terrorism. Only by understanding the true, complex nature of al-Qaeda, he argues, can we address the real issues surrounding our security today.
