Book Alert / Al Qaeda In Its Own Words

Al Qaeda In Its Own Words, Edited by Gilles Kepel and Jean-Pierre Milelli, Belknap/Harvard '08, $27.95, 363 pages, ISBN #067402804X. Index, sources, no bibliography or illustrations.

It's the ultimate terrorist daydream -- to strike to the heart of its enemy's empire, shaking its way of living to its roots, then to vanish, only to emerge in periodic videos with oracular pronouncements, all the while eluding an international manhunt. In this thought-provoking new volume, Editors Gilles Kepel and Jean-Pierre Milelli seek to get inside the head of Al Qaeda's leaders  through their own writings.

"The very nature of Al Qaeda as an entity remains unclear," writes Kepel, as it demonstrates "new rules of relations among states, nations and societies, between violence and media spectacle; it has revealed new modes of militant mobilization, while apparently reviving ancient codes that were believed to have become obsolete: the quest for martyrdom and the process of religious indoctrination spontaneously evoke the Middle Ages more readily than they do the age of information technology."

Following a general introduction, the editors divide their text into four sections, each featuring writings of one of four Al Qaeda kingpins: Osama Bin Laden, Abdallah Assam, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, and Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi. The material on Osama Bin Laden, for example, includes excerpts from interviews with CNN and Al-Jazeera, published tactical recommendations, and missives to the Muslims of Iraq and the American people.