In the months following the 9/11 attacks, Peter Bergen became familiar to viewers of CNN. At that time, he was functioning
as the network’s ‘resident’ terrorism expert. He was appearing very frequently on the network and had many enlightening comments to make about Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda, and the nature of terrorism generally. Although his book is subtitled, ‘Inside the Secret World of Osama bin Laden,’ it is only partly a biography of bin Laden and is more an examination of al Qaeda and how it operates. For a full biography of bin Laden in book form, the reader is better advised to consult such works as ‘Bin Laden, the Man who Declared War on America,’ by Yossef Bodansky.
The book is especially interesting not only for its knowledgeable analysis, but because Bergen is one of the few western journalists who actually was able to interview bin Laden face to face. The opening portions of the book explain how Bergen was able to make contact with bin Laden in Afghanistan, four years before the attacks of 9/11. In describing how he was able to follow through with this contact, he gives a detailed insight into the degree of security and secrecy that al Qaeda has been able to create around its leadership, which may suggest why it has proven extremely difficult for the US and its allies to ferret him out in the time since 2001.
Bergen goes into the historical background of al Qaeda, and how it emerged in the struggles of the mujahideen against the Russians in the Afghan War during the 1980’s. He was not present in Afghanistan himself during that time, but he cites a number of journalists whom he knows well and who were there, making their own firsthand observations of the country, its culture, and what was going on. Although the US supported the Afghan mujahideen at this time, Bergen strongly agrees with others in arguing that there is no evidence that bin Laden received any direct American aid at that time. Bin Laden’s dislike of the US and anything Western was being firmed up at that time, and crystallized when the Saudi government allowed the US to build up its military strength in Saudi Arabia before the Gulf War of 1991. Bergen thus joins the ranks of those who are highly critical of the notion that the US ‘made bin Laden who he is.’
Bergen discusses the activities with which bin Laden’s name became associated. These include the attacks that were made in Saudi Arabia and Yemen, the embassy bombings in East Africa, the time spent in the Sudan, his return to Afghanistan where he was protected by the Taliban, the first attacks on the World Trade Center in 1993, and the bombing of the USS Cole. Bergen has a great deal to say about the horrors of 9/11.
About half the book, however, is less about bin Laden per se and more about other personalities and operations of al Qaeda and Islamist extremism that is associated with it. Ali Muhammed, who once served in the US military, and his center in Brooklyn are discussed. So also is Ahmed Ressam, the so called ‘millennium bomber’ who was arrested in Port Angeles, Washington after assembling explosives in a Vancouver motel and trying to enter Washington State on a ferry trip from British Columbia. Bergen has an entire chapter on the Taliban itself, and discusses the operations of al Qaeda in Europe.
Although ‘Holy War, Inc.’ is not up to date from the point of view of July, 2005, when this abstract was prepared, it is an interesting source of material that came out of the charged atmosphere immediately after 9/11, when the ‘War on Terrorism’ began. In the flurry of published activity that emerged after 9/11, Bergen’s book came out so quickly that it was printed without an index. Readers were invited to go to a website and download it.