The New Jackals : Ramzi Yousef, Osama Bin Laden and the Future of Terrorism - The astonishing true story of the most dangerous men in the world. On 26 February 1993 a massive bomb devastated New York's World Trade Center, creating more hospital casualties than any event in American history since the Civil War. Ramzi Yousef, the young British-educated terrorist who masterminded the attack, had been seeking to topple the twin towers and cause tens of thousands of fatalities. An intensive FBI investigation into the crime quickly developed into a man-hunt that took top FBI agents across the globe. But even with the FBI on his trail, Yousef continued with his campaign of terror. He bombed an airplane and an Iranian shrine. He tried to kill Benazir Bhutto, the former Pakistani Prime Minister, and planned to assassinate the Pope, President Clinton and simultaneously destroy 11 airliners over the Pacific Ocean using tiny undetectable bombs. He also plotted an attack on the CIA headquarters with a plane loaded with chemical weapons. His pursuers dubbed Yousef "an evil genius". During their huge investigation FBI agents discovered that Yousef was funded and sent on some of his attacks by Osama bin Laden, a mysterious Saudi millionaire. By the mid-1990s they realized bin Laden had become the most influential sponsor of terrorism in the world, and agents now conclude that since the early 1990s a small group of terrorists supported by bin Laden have dominated international terrorism. These "Afghan Arabs" helped defeat the Soviets in Afghanistan before killing thousands of people in campaigns against governments in the West, Africa, the Middle East and Asia. When bin Laden's followers attacked American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania on 7 August 1998, killing 224 people, the US finally launched cruise missile strikes in an attempt to destroy his secret organization. Drawing on unpublished reports, interrogation files, interviews with senior FBI agents who hunted Yousef, intelligence sources and government figures including Benazir Bhutto, Simon Reeve gives a harrowing account of Yousef's bombings, offers a revealing insight into his background, and details the FBI's man-hunt to catch him. Reeve explains how Yousef was one of bin Laden's first operatives and documents bin Laden's life and emergence as the leader of a potent terrorist organization, giving fascinating insights into the man President Clinton has called "the pre-eminent organizer and financier of international terrorism in the world today". Highly detailed and yet immensely readable, The New Jackals sheds new light on two of the world's most notorious terrorists. Reeve warns that Yousef and bin Laden are just the first of a new breed of terrorist, men with no restrictions on mass killing. He also offers evidence that bin Laden's organization may already have chemical and nuclear weapons and explains why the world could soon face attacks by terrorists with weapons of mass destruction. Simon Reeve is a journalist and writer. He worked for The Sunday Times of London for five years before leaving to finish co-writing The Millennium Bomb, published in 1996. He has since contributed to books on corruption, organized crime and terrorism, and has written investigative feature articles for publications ranging from Time magazine to Esquire. He lives in London. During research for The New Jackals Reeve has eaten ice cream sorbet with Benazir Bhutto, spent hours sitting in stairwells on a London housing estate waiting for a former Lebanese smuggler, met American intelligence officials in suburban burger bars and a Chinese restaurant, and been followed by agents from two different countries during meetings with a renegade Asian spy.

bin Laden : The Man Who Declared War on America - Shortly after terrorists led by Osama bin Laden attacked the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, President Bill Clinton ordered retaliatory missile strikes against targets in Afghanistan and Sudan. It was the first time the United States had responded to an individual terrorist with such overwhelming military force. Bin Laden, of course, is no run-of-the-mill rabble-rouser; Clinton called him "perhaps the preeminent organizer and financier of international terrorism in the world today." That's quite a label for someone who, as biographer Yossef Bodansky describes, "lives with his four wives and some fifteen children in a small cave in eastern Afghanistan" without running water. Yet he is "a principal player in a tangled and sinister web of terrorism-sponsoring states, intelligence chieftains, and master terrorists." Remarkably little is known about the man; as Bodansky reveals, even the year of bin Laden's birth is uncertain. This book, then, is more than the story of a single terrorist. It's a description of a whole movement waging a jihad--holy war--against the United States in the belief that America's modernizing influence on Arab nations thwarts Islamic fundamentalist goals. Bin Laden is strikingly current, extremely well informed, and thoroughly detailed. Readers interested in facts about the Middle East's violent underworld will find it fascinating--and chilling. Bodansky notes that bin Laden has become a hero to radical Muslim youth, and Osama is now a very popular baby name in many Arab countries. Jeane J. Kirkpatrick: "This fascinating account of Osama bin Laden's war against America illustrates the murky world of Islamic extremism and state-sponsored terrorism. I strongly recommend it."