Anatomy of Terror

March 6, 2017
Soufan (The Black Banners), a Lebanon-born former FBI special agent who specialized in antiterrorism, takes a deep look at the inner workings, ideology, internal politics, and strategies of modern Islamic terrorism. Based on unclassified sources as well as on detailed knowledge from Soufan’s time in the FBI, the book follows the evolution of Islamic terrorism in the post–bin Laden era. One of the major points of focus here is the divisions among different terrorist leaders regarding strategy. A primary example concerns those who see the goal of terror as the defeat of the U.S. as compared with those who see their primary purpose as defeating local leaders. Soufan describes how Osama bin Laden’s death combined with the rise of the Islamic State to deal a double blow to al-Qaeda. He concludes, however, that the eclipse of al-Qaeda by the Islamic State is only temporary. This is the war on terror as seen from the other side; Soufan covers the backgrounds, families, and personal connections of the top terrorist leaders, and how those relationships influence decisions on strategy and organization. Soufan reveals himself to be a true expert on the subject and this is an important read for understanding these groups’ goals and operations.

Starred review from March 15, 2017
Tracing the hydra-headed reach of al-Qaida and how its leadership morphed into the Islamic Caliphate of Iraq and elsewhere.Former FBI agent Soufan (The Black Banners: The Inside Story of 9/11 and the War Against al-Qaeda, 2011) composes a concise, accessible, enormously readable account of the trajectory of al-Qaida, especially through the actions of its murderous main protagonists. To tell the story of this splintering terrorist operation, Soufan--as others have had to do before him--first steps backward to delineate the state of the Islamic world in which these jihadis could take root: scant education for most Muslims, based on dogma and ritual and little critical thinking; oppression of women; unemployment and blunted economic opportunity; and insularity and ignorance about the outside world. In such conditions, radicalism was attractive, and Osama bin Laden, having -crystallized his legend by helping the mujahideen [sic] win a famous victory against Russian special forces in the mountain passes of Jaji near the Pakistani border,- stepped in after the Russian withdrawal and urged the Arab recruits to fight -the imperialists.- He believed it was necessary to concentrate the movement's ire on defeating the Americans first, the far enemy--hence the spectacular success, by al-Qaida's accounting, of 9/11. Bin Laden's nemesis in building up the Iraqi jihad, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was killed by the Americans in 2006, would take up the struggle against the apostate Shia especially, to great controversy within the organization: -waging jihad with my brothers to establish for Islam a homeland and for the Koran a state.- After bin Laden's death in 2011 and the rise of the Arab Spring, the main organization splintered, in Somalia, Yemen, Algeria, and elsewhere, with Egyptian surgeon Ayman al-Zawahiri becoming ringmaster. As the al-Qaida franchises proliferated, the goal--the establishment of an Islamic state, made possible more quickly than imagined by the Syrian civil war--was shared and spread, and, as the author notes, the organization -once again has the means and the opportunity to attack.- In a dizzying scenario of violence, Soufan provides clarity and balance.

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February 15, 2017

This is a highly informative and compelling book on some of the major Sunni Islamic extremist groups. The author is head of the Soufan Group, a private security consulting firm, and a former FBI agent who was involved in investigating several high-profile terrorism episodes in the United States and abroad. Soufan's first book, The Black Banners, remains one of the most insightful books in English on al-Qaeda. He began to study and follow the exploits of the Saudi millionaire Osama bin Laden and his emergent terrorist organization, al-Qaeda, long before the 9/11 attacks. In this book, the author expands upon the theme of his earlier work through the stories of several key Sunni Islamic radicals, including bin Laden himself. Through these stories, the author takes the reader inside the mind set of individuals such as Saif al-Adel (bin Laden's security chief), Ayman al-Zawahiri (bin Laden's deputy and successor), Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian militant who founded the terrorist organization that later became the Islamic State (IS), the group's current leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and many members of bin Laden's inner circle. VERDICT An important book for everyone who wants to understand the influence of bin Laden and al-Qaeda on today's terrorist groups. [See Prepub Alert, 12/5/16.]--Nader Entessar, Univ. of South Alabama, Mobile

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