© Columbia University Press
Inside Al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror
June, 2002
Cloth, 240 pages,
ISBN: 978-0-231-12692-2
$30.00
"[This] book is a careful and methodical account of bin Laden's emergence as a leader, and of al-Qaeda cells active around the world. As a handbook, Inside Al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror does the work of many tomes, but its chief strength is to be found in Gunaratna's final chapter, where he argues that the political war will be ignored at America's peril." — Thomas Powers, New York Review of Books
"One of the few qualified to talk with authority about Al-Qaeda is Rohan Gunaratna, author of this excellent book. . . . He has interviewed more than 200 terrorists, including Al-Qaeda members, in dozens of countries, and read countless transcripts of intercepted communications, including calls made by Bin Laden himself. . . . It is one of the strengths of Gunaratna's book that he shows conclusively how disparate attacks against western interests all stemmed from the same source." — The Sunday Times (London)
"[A] remarkable new study. . . . No one reading Gunaratna's book could be in any doubt that Al Qaeda is an awesome force." — The Times (London)
"An alarming, but important book on Al Qaeda." — Wolf Blitzer, CNN
"Excellent....Gunaratna has taken a great deal of information from around the world--marshalling together police and intelligence sources, his own interviews with al Qaeda associates and the group's own documents--to create a comprehensive examination of the terrorist network." — Peter Bergen, Washington Post
"Rohan Gunaratna succeeds.... His deep understanding of the mechanics of the menace has allowed him to wearve an account of how Al-Qaeda became--and remains--a threat." — Financial Times (London)
"The most alarming conclusion to be drawn. . . is how little we really know about Al Qaeda." — The Economist
"An essential first step in good counterintelligence work." — Foreign Affairs