Product Description

AFTER SEPTEMBER 11, 2001...
...the federal government detained several hundred people suspected of terrorist involvement, and continued to search for hundreds more. Some were overseas, some were on the run, but most were already at home -- in America.

Who are these people? Where did they come from? And how could there be so many terrorists or suspected terrorists living among us without action being taken? In American Jihad, Steven Emerson, the world's leading authority on domestic Islamic terrorist networks, tells the full story of the rise of those who wish to destroy the United States from within.

From the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, to foiled attacks on the New York City subway system, to a stunning range of murders across the country, there were numerous warning signs that the "American Jihad" had been gaining momentum. With an up-to-the-minute afterword that explains the stops and starts of the post-9/11 investigation, American Jihad reveals the full story that only Emerson knows -- and the reasons America failed to stop the most devastating attack in history on our own soil. This is a frightening and crucial book for anyone who needs to understand the threat within our borders.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #27624 in Books
• Published on: 2003-01-28
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

Amazon.com Review
Some have said that the events of September 11 took every American by surprise. That's not true. There were Cassandras among us warning about the dangers of Islamic terrorism--and one of their leaders was Steven Emerson, who must be ranked among the most fearless reporters in the world. As a self-made expert on Islamic terrorism, he has invited the hatred of violent murderers. (At least one group has marked him for assassination; he was offered enrollment in the federal witness protection program, but refused). For more than 10 years, Emerson has soldiered on, studying groups that operate in the United States for the express purpose of funding and managing deadly organizations. American Jihad summarizes what he has learned, and it isn't comforting. Emerson shows how the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas has grown an extensive network in the United States, how the group Islamic Jihad set up shop at the University of South Florida, and how an Islamic center in Tucson helped recruit two of Osama bin Laden's top deputies. He also provides circumstantial evidence that bin Laden himself once applied for an American visa--"even the possibility is tantalizing, and chilling," he concludes. He urges Americans to fight back, but worries that time is short: "We are still vulnerable." This is an important book, and a sobering one. --John Miller

Review
Melissa Radler The Jerusalem Post It is hard to think of anyone who has done more extensive research in the area. The things that worry Emerson should worry America at large. -- Review

Review
Ethan BronnerThe New York Times Book ReviewEmerson is an investigator who has performed a genuine service...His information should be taken seriously.

Jeff JacobyThe Boston GlobeThe indispensable guide to American Muslim extremists and their ties to international terrorism.

Richmond Times-DispatchThe book is thorough and audacious -- and sobering. American Jihad belongs on the required reading list.

Oliver RevellFormer FBI Assistant Director in Charge of CounterterrorismIt may be that Mr. Emerson is actually better informed in some areas than the responsible agencies of government.

Melissa RadlerThe Jerusalem PostIt is hard to think of anyone who has done more extensive research in the area. The things that worry Emerson should worry America at large.

Customer Reviews

Swiss cheese
Radical Islamic forces have many times threatened Steven Emerson's life. From their point of view, he knows too much. His Investigative Project has logged more than 6,000 hours of video and audio tapes, and its library is probably the world's most comprehensive on radical Islam. Emerson has thus for years lived in hiding, emerging only for talks and meetings to impart what he knows. In this book, he reveals an American intelligence system so full of holes that it resembles finely aged Swiss cheese. Readers get a solid, albeit unpleasant, taste.

Emerson reveals the vision of a globe dominated by Islam prevalent among radical Islamic forces everywhere for the last two decades. Emerson's chatty account backs up this seeming scare mongering with enough facts about radical Islam's worldwide network to curdle one's blood. These forces have for 12 years achieved a new level of coordination, owing to their exploitation of civil liberties in the U.S.

"None of these groups was ever able to coordinate its worldwide efforts with the others until they came to the United States," Emerson writes. They use freedoms of speech and assembly with little oversight from the FBI, CIA, Immigration and Naturalization Service or any number of other U.S. agencies, including the Federal Communications Commission, Federal Aviation Administration, and so on. Let us hope that free world leaders are listening.

Emerson opens his first-person account with details on how he was drawn to pursue and document radical Islam. In 1992, as a reporter for CNN, he was covering an Oklahoma City press conference at which of former Iran-contra special prosecutor Lawrence Welsh released a statement from President Bush (le pere), pardoning former Secretary of State Casper Weinberger. He was bored.

On December 25, Emerson passed some men in Arab robes clustered outside the Oklahoma City Convention Center. The Muslim Arab Youth Association meeting inside featured a "bazaar of vendors hawking all kinds of radical material," books preaching Islamic jihad, calling for the extermination of Christians and Jews, even coloring books instructing children 'How to Kill the Infidel'--and speakers from Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood (founded in Egypt in 1920s), Palestinian Islamic Jihad, among others. A Detroit FBI agent fielded questions from "a visibly hostile audience" cheekily asking for "advice on how to ship weapons overseas." Emerson's call to FBI headquarters produced the astounding revelation that the FBI could and would do little to monitor these groups.

Although a print journalist, Emerson after the February 26 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center pitched to the U.S. Public Broadcasting System a story on the recruitment and training of radical Islamic warriors inside America. The resulting hour-long program, Jihad in America, aired on November 21, 1994 and is available free on the Internet. In a Brooklyn, N.Y. Yemeni grocery store, Emerson found and bought 20 copies of videos promoting paramilitary training. His reporting took him to Florida, Texas, Chicago, the Middle East and Pakistan.

The first calls for global jihad came from a Palestinian Arab mullah, Abdullah Azzam, whose base in Peshawar, Pakistan recruited and trained Muslim warriors for a jihad against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Azzam was killed in 1989 with his two oldest sons, a murder that went unsolved. But his followers, including a third son in Pakistan and a nephew in Chicago, spread his seditious message everywhere. On a 1993 trip to the West Bank, Emerson and translator Khalid Duran learned from a taxi driver that Azzam's brother-in-law lived in Jenin and from there, obtained more interviews.

El-Sayeed Nosair, who murdered Rabbi Meir Kahane in New York, led to 47 boxes of Arabic material, which police unfortunately ignored until after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Nosair had planned to "thoroughly demoralize the enemies of God" by blowing up and destroying the World Trade Center. The February 1993 WTC bombing killed six and injured more than 1,000 others.

Investigators eventually discovered the error in believing the WTC plotters inept. In fact, they were tied to a global network of al-Qaeda terrorists, including Mohammed Salameh, Palestinian Ramzi Yousef, Ahmad Ajaj, Nidal Ayyad, Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, a blind Egyptian cleric who ran a New Jersey mosque, and Osama bin Laden. One lieutenant, Ali Mohammed, was an officer in the U.S. Army's Special Forces. Their interconnected plots included theft of U.S. government documents, construction and operation of training camps within the U.S. and a 1994 plan to murder Pope John Paul II and blow up 11 American jetliners. The last was foiled only by accident, after Yousef fled the scene of a Manila "work accident" in December 1994, leaving behind a computer full of encrypted plans.

Emerson details his search through the U.S., to jihad academies in Florida and elsewhere. He includes excellent chapters on Hamas; Osama bin Laden, Abdullah Azzam and al-Qaeda; and an appendix exposing the American support these groups get through the Muslim Public Affairs Council, Islamic Circle of North America, American Muslim Council and, last but not least, the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Press pundits often and erroneously quote sources from these groups as "moderate." They are no such thing.

More importantly, Emerson maps out plans by which Western governments and agencies can fight back.

Emerson was closely aided by Khalid Duran, whom Muslim terrorists have also threatened with death. A Spanish Muslim descended from Barbary pirates, Duran is a hero and scholar conversant in English, Spanish, Urdu, Arabic and German, and the author of Children of Abraham: An Introduction to Islam for Jews. His book was endorsed by Jordan's Prince Hassan and throughout the Muslim world.

Duran rightly considers Islamic fundamentalism today a descendant of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood of the 1930s, an imitation of European fascism that failed at the end of World War II but survived and spread throughout the Islamic world. It has proved especially appealing to well-educated, moneyed engineers.

Duran taught Emerson that radical Islam is not the real thing. But he also helped to prove that violent Islamic fundamentalism will be a fixture on the U.S. and global political landscapes for years.

This superb book can help us cope. Alyssa A. Lappen

Every American should read this!
I'd like to think that a book like this would help Americans wake up, but I'm not that naive.
Emerson seems to have spent much time investigating the radical Islamic movement in America, and their links to terrorism. I applaud his research. Facts like these need to get out.

One comment he made troubled me, however: he stated that he was wrong when he initially connected the Oklahoma City bombing with Middle-Eastern terrorists. Maybe he was unaware of the Iraqi connections at the time of publication--I hope he has learned of this since. (It's clear now how the OKC bombing fit exactly into the scheme that he himself has unraveled, and included several of the same players involved in other terrorist plots.)

Most of Emerson's book tracks the flow of money and associations of the terrorists and terrorist sympathizers. He doesn't discuss a lot of the philosophical issues--I guess that could be another book in itself.

Emerson reveals how the international terrorist organizations have used America and her freedoms to fuel their hate crimes against America herself, and many others overseas. He shows how the radical Islamic movement has hijacked the more moderate, peaceful Muslim groups, and has almost completely drowned out their voices.

Unfortunately, this book doesn't have a happy ending. I hope real life turns out differently. But given the pluralistic, politically-correct quagmire our society has become encumbered in, I'm afraid that may not be the case.

A Brave Book
Under the threat of death from the very militants he was investigating, Emerson produced this book of chilling insights. Emerson traces the convergence of the various terrorist groups to the year 1989 and proceeds with a detailed history of their growth from there. Among Emerson's colleagues is the liberal Muslim, Khalid Duran, who wrote a book about fostering understanding between religions. Duran has also been subject to death threats from militant conservative Islamist organizations.

Especially disturbing are Emerson's observations on how the militant groups hide under the cover of "charitable organizations" which are exempt from scrutiny. And the way the militants deny their activities even as they are caught red-handed is maddening.

This is an extremely important book. We ignore it at our peril. The very existence of the United States is in danger unless we pay attention to the militant Islamist threat.