Inside Al Qaeda: How I Infiltrated the World's Deadliest Terrorist Organization

By Mohamed Sifaoui

In February 1996, Mohamed Sifaoui, an Algerian-born journalist, survived a bomb attack that killed several friends and colleagues--and thirty passers-by. "That day I realized something fundamental: I... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1560256109
• ISBN13: 9781560256106
• Release Date: March 2004
• Publisher: Basic Books
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 0.26 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.5" x 0.5" x 5.0"

Customer Reviews

Interesting book on Algerian extremists in France

Interesting book, mostly on Algerian Islamicist extremism overseas and its links with extremists from other national groups. Sifaoui is an anti-Islamicist journalist from North Africa. The book is less about al-Qa'ida per se than about the Algerian Islamicist networks, but given the informality of 'al-Qa'ida', it is the more meaningful for it. A book that goes well with this book is Abd Samad Moussaoui's "Zacarias Moussaoui, mon frère" (translated as "Zacarias Moussaoui: the twentieth man?" in the USA and as "Zacarias Moussaoui: The making of a terrorist" in the UK). Moussaoui, the brother of a French-Moroccan arrested immediately after 9/11, tries to explain why he thinks his brother became a terrorist. Thought-provoking.

Well written, intimate look at "ordinary" terrorists

Sifaoui's diary gives the reader a detailed look at the individuals who are drawn into Al Qaeda terrorism. I have read many books on this subject, and this is the first one that truly revealed the terrorist character - something that must be understood in order to combat this growing threat.