Terrorism Reading List

With the terrible events of September 11th, 2001 fresh in our minds, the following recommendations are provided to help focus your reading on a subject that has changed each of our lives.

The New Jackals: Ramzi Yousef, Osama bin Laden and the Future of Terrorism

Author: Simon Reeve
Date of Publication: October 1999
Overview:  The astonishing true story of the most dangerous men in the world.  On 26 February 1993 a massive bomb devastated New York's World Trade Center, creating more hospital casualties than any event in American history since the Civil War. Ramzi Yousef, the young British-educated terrorist who masterminded the attack, had been seeking to topple the twin towers and cause tens of thousands of fatalities.
        An intensive FBI investigation into the crime quickly developed into a man-hunt that took top FBI agents across the globe. But even with the FBI on his trail, Yousef continued with his campaign of terror. He bombed an airplane and an Iranian shrine. He tried to kill Benazir Bhutto, the former Pakistani Prime Minister, and planned to assassinate the Pope, President Clinton and simultaneously destroy 11 airliners over the Pacific Ocean using tiny undetectable bombs. He also plotted an attack on the CIA headquarters with a plane loaded with chemical weapons. His pursuers dubbed Yousef "an evil genius".
        During their huge investigation FBI agents discovered that Yousef was funded and sent on some of his attacks by Osama bin Laden, a mysterious Saudi millionaire. By the mid-1990s they realized bin Laden had become the most influential sponsor of terrorism in the world, and agents now conclude that since the early 1990s a small group of terrorists supported by bin Laden have dominated international terrorism. These "Afghan Arabs" helped defeat the Soviets in Afghanistan before killing thousands of people in campaigns against governments in the West, Africa, the Middle East and Asia. When bin Laden's followers attacked American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania on 7 August 1998, killing 224 people, the US finally launched cruise missile strikes in an attempt to destroy his secret organization.
        Drawing on unpublished reports, interrogation files, interviews with senior FBI agents who hunted Yousef, intelligence sources and government figures including Benazir Bhutto, Simon Reeve gives a harrowing account of Yousef's bombings, offers a revealing insight into his background, and details the FBI's man-hunt to catch him. Reeve explains how Yousef was one of bin Laden's first operatives and documents bin Laden's life and emergence as the leader of a potent terrorist organization, giving fascinating insights into the man President Clinton has called "the pre-eminent organizer and financier of international terrorism in the world today".  Amazon. 

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Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America

Author: Yossef Bodansky
Date of Publication:  September 21, 2001
Overview:  Shortly after terrorists led by Osama bin Laden attacked the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, President Bill Clinton ordered retaliatory missile strikes against targets in Afghanistan and Sudan. It was the first time the United States had responded to an individual terrorist with such overwhelming military force. Bin Laden, of course, is no run-of-the-mill rabble-rouser; Clinton called him "perhaps the preeminent organizer and financier of international terrorism in the world today." That's quite a label for someone who, as biographer Yossef Bodansky describes, "lives with his four wives and some fifteen children in a small cave in eastern Afghanistan" without running water. Yet he is "a principal player in a tangled and sinister web of terrorism-sponsoring states, intelligence chieftains, and master terrorists." Remarkably little is known about the man; as Bodansky reveals, even the year of bin Laden's birth is uncertain. This book, then, is more than the story of a single terrorist. It's a description of a whole movement waging a jihad--holy war--against the United States in the belief that America's modernizing influence on Arab nations thwarts Islamic fundamentalist goals. Bin Laden is strikingly current, extremely well informed, and thoroughly detailed. Readers interested in facts about the Middle East's violent underworld will find it fascinating--and chilling. Bodansky notes that bin Laden has become a hero to radical Muslim youth, and Osama is now a very popular baby name in many Arab countries. --John J. Miller --Amazon editorial review.

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Usama Bin Laden's Al-Qaida : Profile of a Terrorist Network

Author:  Yonah Alexander, Michael S. Swetnam
Date of Publication: April 2001
Overview:  The al-Qaida informal and loose international network in over 50 countries has been responsible for spectacular terrorist operations such as the 1993 World Trade Center bombing in New York, the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in East Africa, and is apparently linked to the attack of the destroyer USS Cole in Aden, Yemen, in 2000.  The purpose of this book is not to glorify bin Laden and al-Qaida. Rather, it is designed to provide an easily accessible reference for academics, policy makers, reporters and other interested individuals on one of the most notorious terrorist groups. The volume exposes much of al-Qaida’s mystique and thereby places it in perspective as one of the many challenges facing the international community in the 21st Century. Amazon.

Buy Usama Bin Laden's Al-Qaida

Triumph of Disorder : Islamic Fundamentalism, the New Face of War

Author: 
Date of Publication: April 1999
Overview:  Describes the threat to the west from Islamic terrorism.

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Fighting Terrorism: How Democracies Can Defeat Domestic and International Terrorists

Author:
Date of Publication: March 1997
Overview:  The Prime Minister of Israel and a noted authority on international terrorists, Benjamin Netanyahu offers a compelling approach to understanding terrorism. Much more dangerous than domestic terrorists is the spread of fundamentalist Islamic terrorism. Netanyahu explores how democracies can defend themselves against this new threat. Ingram.

Buy Fighting Terrorism

Living Terrors: What America Needs to Know to Survive the Coming Bioterrorist Catastrophe

Author:
Date of Publication: September 12, 2000
Overview:  Soon.

Buy Living Terrors

Unholy Wars : Afghanistan, America and International Terrorism

Author:  John K. Cooley
Date of Publication: June 1, 1999
Overview:  To oppose the Soviet invasion in Afghanistan in 1979, the United States formed an extraordinary anti-Communist alliance with militant Islamic forces in South Asia. John Cooley describes the development of U.S. foreign policy and CIA covert activity in the 1980s, which facilitated the training and arming of almost a quarter of a million Islamic mercenaries drawn from around the world. Cooley marshals a wealth of evidence to demonstrate the devastating consequences of this alliance between the U.S. government and radical Islam--from the assassination of Sadat, the destabilization of Algeria and Checnya and the emergence of the Taliban, to the bombings of the World Trade Center and the US embassies in Africa.  
        Cooleye examines the crucial role of Pakistan's military intelligence organization; uncovers China's involvement and its aftermath; the extent of Saudi financial support; the role of "America's most wanted man." the guerrilla leader Osama bin Laden; the BCCI connection; and the CIA's cynical promotion of drug traffic to the Golden Crescent. UNHOLY WARS seeks out the lessons to be learned from this still unfolding drama.  
        This completely revised edition examines the new terrorist conspiracy network uncovered in the US and Canada, linked to Bin Laden since December 1999. It also covers the many important events in Pakistan since the military coup of October 1999 and the impact of this on Indo-Pakistani relations. Cooley also focuses on recent events in Algeria, which have been linked to the role of the "Afghanis" in the extremist GIA whose members are involved in the new US-Canada conspiracies.  Amazon.

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Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia

Author:  Ahmed Rashid
Date of Publication:  March 2000
Overview:  Correspondent Ahmed Rashid brings the shadowy world of the Taliban—the world's most extreme and radical Islamic organization—into sharp focus in this enormously insightful book. He offers the only authoritative account of the Taliban available to English-language readers, explaining the Taliban's rise to power, its impact on Afghanistan and the region, its role in oil and gas company decisions, and the effects of changing American attitudes toward the Taliban. He also describes the new face of Islamic fundamentalism and explains why Afghanistan has become the world center for international terrorism.  Amazon

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Origins of Terrorism: Psychologies, Ideologies, Theologies, States of Mind

Author:
Date of Publication: October 1998
Overview:  Soon.

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Reaping the Whirlwind : The Taliban Movement in Afghanistan

Author:  Michael Griffin
Date of Publication: May 1, 2001
Overview:  Cut adrift after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Afghanistan has become a political no-man's-land. Historically an artificial "buffer state", Afghanistan has in recent years become the geopolitical playground of a variety of competing interests - the Americans, the Saudis, Russians and Pakistanis, let alone drug barons, arms dealers and oil interests.
        Afghanistan's unstable and problematic history is now further complicated by the emergence of the Taliban - one of the most conservative and least understood Islamic movements in the world.  The Taliban continues to grab the headlines, most notably for their appalling treatment of women, and their connections to Osama bin Laden.
        Investigative journalist Michael Griffin draws numerous interviews with key protagonists, and offers a fascinating eyewitness picture drawn from three extensive trips to Afghanistan. He paints the fullest picture yet of the Taliban movement, its origins, beliefs, religious and political ethos, and the character and impact of its particular brand of fundamentalism. In the process he reveals the controversial nature of the Taliban's links with the CIA, Saudi Arabia and other vested interests. Who is to blame for the present situation? What conspiracies and collusions led to this pass? The author's conclusion reveals his view of where the "smoking gun" is pointed.  Amazon.

Buy Reaping the Whirlwind

Terrorism & The Constitution-Sacrificing Civil Liberties in the Name of National Security

Author:  James X. Dempsey, David Cole
Date of Publication: June 15, 1999
Overview:  Traces the history leading up to the Anti-terrorism Act of 1996 "one of the worst assaults on civil liberties in decades." The authors review of the abuses occurring today-denials of due process, detentions of aliens based on secret evidence, investigations of support for lawful humanitarian activity - culminates with recommendations for a counter terrorism strategy that would conform to the Constitution - one focused on individual culpability for acts of violence rather than on political ideology...Amazon.

Buy Terrorism & The Constitution

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Last modified: March 02, 2003