Vol. 2 No. 6

November 2003
Book Review
  Al-Qaeda: Casting a Shadow of Terror, by Jason Burke, I.B. Tauris, London, 2003, 304 pages, indexed, cloth, $24.95.

REVIEWED BY: Mayer Nudell, CSC, an independent consultant on crisis management, contingency planning, and related issues. He is a member of ASIS International.

Understanding the enemy is important to deal with his threats, Security professionals may find help in understanding Al Qaeda in a new book by Jason Burke, a Pulitzer Prize-winning chief reporter for the London Observer. Al Qaeda: Casting a Shadow of Terror reflects Burke's decade of reporting on the Middle East and Southwest Asia, where he witnessed many of the events described in his book. More importantly, Burke's insights into the organization of Al Qaeda help put this shadowy terrorist "organization" into some focus.

In this book, Burke describes how Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda have taken advantage of the growing interest among Muslim youth in Islam and their confusion of the failings of Arab governments with a perception that a return to fundamentalism will solve them. The frustrations over lack of jobs, housing, social mobility, and low standards of living have metamorphosized into a rejection of "Western materialism" that Al Qaeda has further transformed into a message of hate and intolerance. This is the root of the real danger to us and why we must understand it.

Burke sees Al Qaeda as an evolving organization existing on three levels. The inner-most level is the hardcore membership-the militants who have been with bin Laden since the late 1980s and are his most-trusted associates and followers. The second level consists of the many militant Islamist groups around the world who share bin Laden's world view and have varying amounts of contact with Al Qaeda-often receiving training and funding, but retaining final control over their activities. The third level is more amorphous and consists of individuals who have little if any contact with Al Qaeda itself, but are sympathetic to bin Laden's message and independently act in accordance with their perceptions of how to implement the message.

Burke's look at Al Qaeda in the context of its place in today's Islamic word helps us all understand the nature of the threat it poses to us. The importance of this cannot be understated, because as we all know, dealing with terrorism is a multi-faceted effort that must also address its underlying origins.