The New Jackals: Osama bin Laden and the Future of Terrorism

On 26th February 1993, a massive bomb devastated New York's World Trade Center resulting in more hospital casualties than any event in American history since the Civil War. Ramzi Yousef, the Kuwaiti-born, British-educated terrorist who masterminded the attack, had been seeking to topple the twin towers and cause tens of thousands of fatalities. The attack was linked to the Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden. On 11 September 2001, Simon Reeve's book proved to be tragically prophetic. Yousef's original aim to destroy the twin towers of the World Trade Center was finally fulfilled when two passenger jets were hijacked and flown into the two buildings. A third plane crashed into the Pentagon, a fourth went down outside Pittsburgh, killing all on board but avoiding the wholesale slaughter of the previous three planes. During their extensive investigation FBI agents discovered that Yousef was being funded and sent on some of his attacks by Osama bin Laden, a mysterious Saudi millionaire. By the mid- 1990s a small group of extremists supported by bin Laden were found to dominate international terrorism. on 7 August 1998, killing 224 people, the US finally launched cruise missile strikes in an attempt to destroy his highly mobile secret organization. Highly detailed and yet immensely readable, The New Jackals sheds fresh light on the world's most notorious terrorist: bin Laden. Tracing the FBI investigation through interviews with FBI and CIA agents, this book reveals the painstaking process that will be going on now. It also sheds light on the kind of networks that exist across the world, that could implement such a horrific terrorist attack. In this book, Reeve warns that Yousef and bin Laden are just the first of a new breed of terrorist whose acts of violence know no restriction and whose motivation is to maximize casualities of their enemies, this prediction has come tragically true. He also offers evidence that bin Laden's organization my already have chemical and nuclear weapons and explains why the world could soon face attacks by terrorists with weapons of mass destruction.