Inside Al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror
by Rohan Gunaratna

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Book Reviews of Inside Al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror

Book Review: The DEFINITIVE BOOK proven more correct every single day
Summary: 5 Stars

The latest sign of author Rohan Gunaratna's solid scholarship, analysis and nuts-and-bolts-inside-info in Inside Al Qaeda has been displayed on the front page of the Los Angeles Times which ran a story about how the terrorist organization is undergoing a "major shift" in strategy -- mutating into more of a decentralized network, relying on an array of regional and local allies to launch more frequent attacks on targets. If you read the book before, you KNEW that this network was in place -- and that this development was coming.

Guanaratna painstakingly lays out the huge worldwide network of terrorist groups that are directly or indirectly allied with Al Qaeda. He breaks it down into regions and countries. In fact, this book is a virtual directory: see an event in the newspapers, then look it up in this book and you have all the background to sound like an on the air expert (but you won't get paid big bucks).

No, it does not read like a novel. But this superb book is highly readable -- reading like a straightfoward newsmagazine report. There is not a word of filler or ideological rhetoric in it -- the author only lays out....facts. When he states that there is no evidence of a solid connection between Iraq and 911 he has 100 percent credibility due to what has come before. He's NOT proclaming it due to any political agenda.

The book details it all: the bloody and highly political rise of Osama Bin Laden, Bin Laden's motives and goals (basically achieve a political goal by garnering a high victim body count, and whether that includes civilians, women, children or Muslims is absolutely irrelevant); the skyrocketing rise of militant Islam; how slights from fellow Muslim national leaders created and radicalized the Al Qaeda into a terrorism Frankenstein; an account of 911 from an operational standpoint; predictions on what is likely to come; and the highly detailed profiles of various cells.

To those who are not sympathetic to Bin Laden or Al Qaeda's political goals (in other words, those who do feel upset if they see innocents intentionally murdered to make a political statement)this book is depressing, as it documents Al Qaeda's highly fluid and adaptable "multidimensional" nature -- which you now see in newscycles each day. Nor will it vanish soon. Writes Gunaratna: "Al Qaeda's leadership, membership and supporters firmly believe that everything happens according to God's will."

Summary of Inside Al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror

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