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

by Mohamed Sifaoui, George Miller (Translation)

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 I absolutely had to fight the fascist ideology of the Islamists and those who supported it, so that I would never again have to leave somewhere hoping that a bomb wouldn't go off." While covering a trial in 2002 Sifaoui came into contact with members of an active Al Qaeda cell in Paris. Sifaoui invented an identity and was able to win their trust and convince the terrorists that he shared their aims. Posing as Djamel Mostaghanemi, a pro-fundamentalist journalist, Sifaoui recorded and filmed his new associates speaking with alarming frankness about how they attract new recruits to the jihad, raise funds, spread propaganda, and, most chilling, identify targets for attack. Facing the possibility of exposure all the time, Sifaoui was at great personal risk, never more so than when he penetrated deep into the organization's hierarchy and was invited to meetings in London, Al Qaeda's European nerve center. A shocking diary, Inside Al Qaeda is also a testimony to one man's display of courage in the pursuit of truth.

Genres: Nonfiction, Middle East

160 pages, Paperback

First published August 7, 2003

Reviews

[Rachael · Rating 4 out of 5]

"In Algeria we have lived through this turmoil without the sympathy of the international community. To put it blunty, the West didn't really care about terrorism until it came knocking at its own door."

The counterpart of Islamism is terrorism.

On deception: act a fool when appropriate and don't be over eager to gain information.

[Nic Seeley · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is in some ways instructive, but it remains a poorly-written, sketchy account by a highly predjudiced interlocutor, who is kind of a terrible person to spend time with.