Wow, what a deep dive into the origins of fundamentalist Islam and what I now believe to be their irreconcilable schism with the Western way of life. Tracing its origins back to the post WWI British/French occupation of the middle East, Wright crafts a narrarive of the birth of radical Islam and the forces that fuelled its growth, from antisemitism, US and Soviet occupation of the Middle East, and cultural juxtapositions. Sadly the picture that is painted of 9/11 is one that could have been forseen several years prior had American intelligence agencies cooperated with each other. This is a fantastic, balanced read into the birth of this tragic event that changed my view of global politics

البروج المشيدة

حصل هذا الكتاب على جائزة البوليتزر للعام 2007 م، وقد استقى مؤلفه الأمريكي (لورانس رايت) العنوان من الآية القرآنية (أَيْنَمَا تَكُونُوا يُدْرِكْكُمُ الْمَوْتُ وَلَوْ كُنْتُمْ فِي بُرُوجٍ مُشَيَّدَةٍ)، وفي إشارة كذلك للبروج المشيدة التي ضربتها القاعدة في 11 سبتمبر، الكتاب رحلة تفصيلية مكتوبة برشاقة، لتنقلك من بدايات بروز الفكر الذي استند عليه تنظيم القاعدة، من سيد قطب، إلى أيمن الظواهري ومن ثم أسامة بن لادن، ليصل إلى الجهاد الأفغاني، وما تلاه بعد ذلك من القصة المعروفة، يتميز الكتاب بنفسه الروائي، فهو يتناول شخصية محددة ويخصص لها فصل أو أكثر، بحيث يجعلك تتعرف على الأحداث والشخصيات بشكل مترابط، وهو جهد استغرق من المؤلف خمس سنوات، ومقابلات مع 600 شخص ممن عاصروا الأحداث أو عايشوها.

تبهرك قدرة المؤلف على تتبع التفاصيل، وتشعر بأنك لأول مرة تمتلك الصورة الكاملة لما حدث، ولكن رغم إعجابي بالكتاب إلا أنني أدرك موطن ضعفه، فالكتاب في سبيل عرض قصة تنظيم القاعدة بصورة روائية، يتجاهل الامتدادات التشعبية التي ستفسد عليه الرواية، وهو المأزق الذي يقع فيه كثير من المؤلفين ويجعل كتبهم تبدو كبحر جارف من الشخصيات والأحداث التي تختلط تماماً بعد عدة فصول، ولا تخرج منها إلا بالقليل، خيار المؤلف منح الكتاب الجماهيرية التي يحتاجها، ولكنك تدرك وأنت تنتهي منه، أنه لم يتحدث تفصيلياً إلا عن ابن لادن والظواهري فقط، وأنه لم يتناول تنظيم القاعدة، ولا عملياته الرئيسية وكيف تمت، حتى 11 سبتمبر لم يتطرق لها بالتفصيل، إنه فقط يريد أن يخبرك بالرحلة التي انتهت بانهيار مركز التجارة العالمي، من دون أن يفصل حول شخصيات قيادية ومهمة في التنظيم مثل خالد شيخ محمد، إن الكتاب يبدو وكأنه أخذ معلوماتك الأساسية المشتتة والتي استقيتها من عدة كتب، وأعاد ترتيبها وتنظيمها، وزودها بتفاصيل أوسع، وأعادها إليك، وظلت الفجوات الضخمة التي كنت تتوقع أن يسدها لك الكتاب قائمة، كما لاحظت في الكتاب أيضاً تبنيه للقصة السعودية حول شخصية ابن لادن، وهي أنه مغرر به من قبل المصريين، وهو ليس إلا شاب ثري متحمس، انتهت به حماسته إلى ما نعرف.

الكتاب رغم انتقاداتي له لا يفوت.

Excellent coverage of the lead up to 9/11. I was glad the book focused so heavily on how it came about on the Islamic side and less (though sufficiently) on how it got missed on the American side.

This was part of my Middle East theme read. I’m so glad to have read Destiny Disrupted and A Peace To End All Peace beforehand. They supplied much crucial background and made this read far richer.

I read this book back in 2006 soon after it was published. I recently came across the following short review of it on my PageADay calendar and decided that it was worthy of adding to my Goodreads.com page.

The following is a review of the book from PageADay's Book Lover's Calendar for 9/10/08:
ON TERRORISM
This is possibly the one book to read about extreme Islamic terrorism. Lawrence Wright’s research is exhaustive, and he has written a gripping, character-driven narrative that completely absorbs the reader. The book has won critical raves from every quarter. Dexter Filkins wrote in The New York Times Book Review that “the portrait of John O’Neill, the driven, demon-ridden F.B.I. agent who worked so frantically to stop Osama bin Laden, only to perish in the attack on the World Trade Center, is worth the price of the book alone. ‘The Looming Tower’ is a thriller. And it’s a tragedy, too.”
n  THE LOOMING TOWER: AL-QAEDA AND THE ROAD TO 9/11n, by Lawrence Wright (Knopf, 2006)

The following is another short review of the book from PageADay's Book Lover's Calendar for 8/16/12:
CURRENT EVENTS
A stately examination of the roots of Middle Eastern terrorism. In the lucid, evocative prose for which he is known in the pages of The New Yorker, Lawrence Wright illuminates the larger picture with telling details from the individuals involved. Starting back in the late 1970s, he explores the history of Al Qaeda, basing his analysis on interviews with more than 500 people to paint a vivid and frightening portrait of the lead-up to 9/11. Evenhanded, informative, riveting, it is “indispensable reading” (The Plain Dealer).
n  LOOMING TOWER: AL QAEDA AND THE ROAD TO 9/11n, by Lawrence Wright (Vintage, 2007)

This book offers the clearest analysis of the road to 9/11. It starts in the 50s with Qutb and shows how his ideas took root in Egypt, especially in Zawahiri.
The writing is excellent throughout. If you're interested in learning more about the elements that combined and culminated in 9/11, this is the book.

It's not often deserving books win the Pulitzer. This is one of them.

Here, Wright tells the story of Al-Qaeda's birth and its long, knotted road to the 9/11 attacks. It's as readable as any thriller, but backed up by painstaking research, some taken from files on a recovered Al-Qaeda computer.

Wright reminds you just how improbable human beings are, and their history. The teenage Bin Laden was addicted to the TV show Bonanza. When holed up in Afghan caves, he enjoyed watching his younger children play Nintendo.

The obsessive FBI agent who spent the last years of his career trying and failing to convince the U.S. government of the threat Bin Laden posed was later found in the rubble of the Twin Towers, where he'd gone to work after being 'retired' from the bureau.

Al-Qaeda operatives whooped for joy after purchasing what they thought was enriched uranium, only to learn it was merely Red Mercury - the nuclear equivalent of Fool's Gold.

I also recommend Wright's recent book Going Clear, a blistering expose of Scientology.

This is a highly readable account of the events leading up to the 9/11 tragedy. It details the activities of it's masterminds and the status of the determined men and women in the US who were putting the pieces together. There is an impressive number of interviews with key players and informed bystanders. While this has been a well covered event, still, without Wright's diligence much of what he presents could have been lost to history.

I've recently read Steve Coll's The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century which focuses on the leaders of the Bin Laden family and Osama, its black sheep. From that work I realized how on the run Bin Laden was and how the Saudi Royal family's power depends on the radical religious leaders. This book fleshes out Osama's life and his increasing radicalization and extent of Saudi money in support of the ideology that results in violence.

Wright humanizes the principle players and this draws you in. He describes Bin Laden and Al Zawahiri as friends and rivals, the basis for their differences and how they came to unite. Wright shows the waning fortunes of Bin Laden in his Sudan years as he loses his money and his access to the family. Bin Laden is shown to be an eclectic and lackluster businessman he had been leading a jihad that has trouble getting traction. Wright gives you insight on Hassen al Turabi and Mullah Omar and how troublesome their "guest" made their lives. Interestingly, we learn of the jihadi who changes his mind about suicide just before entering the Nairobi embassy.

Stateside, you learn about the personalities and rivalries of investigators, how they doggedly pursue clues despite little cooperation or support from above and about the Cole investigation and John O'Neill's (an almost made for TV character) treatment in both Yemen and in the US. The end, when key photographs are faxed to our ONE Arabic translator in Yemen, your heart almost breaks.

It's hard to put down this book. I highly recommend it.

On the morning of September 11th, 2001, I was sitting in the classroom of my PC Networking class after having come back from morning break. My teacher wheeled in a television set and said that the principal felt it was important we watch the events that was unfolding in NYC. The images of the Twin Towers burning and pouring black smoke played on the screen, and all of us were gripped with shock. The news kept replaying the images of the planes slamming into the buildings, and already there was mention of this being an act of terrorism. As we kept watching, I watched the South Tower collapse live. Little did we know how much the world would change.

Twenty years have passed since that day. The United States and other participating countries have been in Afghanistan for two decades. As I watched the chaos unfold in Kabul with the withdrawal of the armed forces and Afghan civilians, I wondered how we even got to this point. The fact that the Taliban had regained territory in most of the country was baffling. The organization we had been at war with for twenty years came back with a vengeance and speed that left my head spinning. How did we get here? Why did Al-Qaeda attack the U.S.?

The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 by Lawrence Wright is a superb place to start if you’re looking for answers. Wright excellently guides the reader through the labyrinth of characters and events that lead to that fateful day. His writing is clear and concise, making it easy to follow. The story follows a timeline, beginning in the 1950s with an Egyptian intellectual named Sayyid Qutb who lived in the U.S. for some time after fleeing political instability that was gripping Egypt at the time. He began to see the West as corrupt and immoral and eventually made his way back to his homeland. Qutb found the West’s worship of sex and wealth and the embracement of materialism and secularism to be an outrage. This radicalized him and in turn his writings radicalized the disenfranchised youth of the Middle East.

From this point Wright weaves a narrative of a growing extremism in Muslim countries based on an interpretation of the Quran where its words call for every Muslim to protect the holy lands against infidels, which includes foreign armies or governments that don’t adhere to Sharia or Islamic Law; some interpreted this to include civilians living under those governments who did not rebel against this rule.

This book shows the dangers literalism presents when it comes to religious text. Words can be twisted by devious minds to do horrendous things. Poverty and a lack of education can be a volatile mix; sly rhetoric can mold those who feel angry and betrayed, and that resentment can be directed to a certain group or place, in this case the West. Osama bin Laden and his next in command Ayman Al-Zawahiri were able to do just that thanks to their Quranic exegesis.

What made me most upset was the many near misses of the U.S. government to prevent the attacks, primarily the CIA and the FBI. Both agencies had intelligence on many of the men responsible – of high-level meetings and telephone calls and photos of the suspects. At some point the CIA had knowledge that some of the hijackers of 9/11 were living in the United States but failed to divulge any information to the FBI team. All this because of a decades-long animosity that had existed between these agencies.

Altogether it was a very educational read albeit depressing. Such a horrendous day that might have been avoided had these branches of the government worked together. Many more questions linger though: What if America never occupied Saudi Arabia during the first Gulf War? What if the CIA/FBI had taken bin Laden as a serious threat earlier? Did bin Laden have a right to wage jihad (holy war) against a country that had occupied his country? Would you do the same if a foreign army came onto your lands? Twenty years later I find myself asking these questions. A lot more reading is required.

Highly recommended.

Vad: Världshistoriens värsta terrorattack
Var: World trade center i New York och Pentagon i Washington D C
Hur: Kapade flygplan, krasch rätt in i byggnaderna
När: 11 September 2001
Vem: Ett gäng losers som kallade sig al-Qaida, ledda av en sopa vid namn bin Ladin.
Varför: Det försöker Lawrence Wright svara på i denna oerhört välskrivna, intressanta och spännande bok.

An electrifying robin. Highly recommend.

The attack on the World Trade Center in New York on Sept 11, 2001, was a major shock to the United States and Western democracies. Since then, I have read books by analysts, journalists and intelligence agents on why it happened and what we could have done better. Some of them covered Osama Bin Laden’s life and his goals, hoping to understand ISIS and other jihadist groups. Meanwhile, western societies proclaimed a war on terror, which had the nasty fall-out of turning our open societies into partial security states. Tax money flowed into massive intelligence budgets and we, as citizens, experienced more and more intrusive laws in our lives. I hedged about reading one more book on the subject, but thought this one by Lawrence Wright may give new insights. The reason was Wright lived in Cairo for a few years when he got his Master’s degree in Arts from the American University there. He is fluent in Arabic and has visited Egypt many times since then. This book gives us a grasp of the origins and politico-cultural context in which Al-Qaeda emerged. It examines the terror attacks since the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993 to 9/11 and shows how the FBI, CIA and the NSA investigated them.

Four principal characters - Sayyid Qutb, Ayman-al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden and John O’Neill - dictate the narrative in this book. Lawrence Wright traces the roots of Islamic fundamentalist politics to Sayyid Qutb, an Egyptian educationist and nationalist of the 1950s. Qutb was a prominent member of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. He spent two years in the US from 1948, studying its education systems. America alienated him with its sexual permissiveness even in the 1940s, especially the freedom of its women! He denounced America’s materialism and its tastes in art. Qutb, unlike his later followers, was fond of music and films. On his return to Egypt, he turned arch conservative, condemning secularism, democracy, and Marxism. He opposed Nasser’s secular dictatorship and advanced the idea of Islam and Sharia as a complete system. He believed Islam should govern every aspect of Muslims’ religious, social, political, and cultural life. The Egyptian state convicted Qutb and hanged him in 1966 on a charge of trying to assassinate the ex - President, Gamal Nasser.

Ayman-al-Zawahiri was fourteen when he joined the Muslim Brotherhood, inspired by Qutb’s vision. Graduating in medicine and then taking a Master’s degree in surgery, Zawahiri founded the organization, Al-Jihad, to make Qutb’s vision of Islamic societies a reality. Soon, the Egyptian military government implicated him on the plot to kill its leader, Anwar Sadat. It imprisoned and tortured him for years. On release, he went to Pakistan and then met Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan. The author suggests Zawahiri was the man who inspired Osama to become a serious Islamist. Without him, Osama may have led a regular political life in Saudi Arabia. Zawahiri was intent on overthrowing Hosni Mubarak’s Egyptian government, while Osama took his own path planning daring attacks on the US in Somalia, New York and East Africa.

I wouldn’t go into the profile of Osama bin Laden in the book because most of the details are familiar to readers after 9/11. The last portrait is of John O’Neill, who led the FBI’s fight against Osama bin Laden. He understood Al-Qaeda best in the FBI. He knew its distinct branches, classifying them as intelligence, administration, planning, and execution. In his personal life, O’Neill oscillated between immorality and extreme piety as an adulterer, a philanderer, a liar, an egotist, a materialist, and living well beyond his means. Stringing along multiple women even as he was married with children, O’Neill was always in debt. He had resigned in August 2001 from the bureau to work at the World Trade Centre. He would have loved to investigate the 9/11 attack, but he was a victim of 9/11 at the WTC.

The most interesting part of the book for me was Wright’s observations on Al-Qaeda and its recruits. He shows how the jihadis had morphed since the days of the Afghan Mujahiddeen in the 1980s. The first generation Mujahiddeen, who fought the Soviets in Afghanistan, had included many middle-class professionals. They were pre-dominantly from Saudi Arabia and Egypt and did jihad with their families in toe. Many of them were doctors, teachers, accountants, and imams. The new jihadis, trained by Al-Qaeda in the late 1990s, spilled out mostly from Europe and Algeria. They were young, single men belonging to the middle or upper class. Almost all of them were from intact families. College- educated, with a bias toward the natural sciences and engineering, few of them were products of religious schools. Many had trained in Europe or the United States and spoke five or six languages and were not too religious when they joined the jihad. They showed no signs of mental disorder, but were skilled in forgery, credit card fraud, and drug trafficking.

Most joined the jihad in a country other than the one in which they grew up. They were Algerians living in France, Moroccans in Spain, or Yemenis in Saudi Arabia. Alienation dogged them. The Pakistani in London felt neither British nor Pakistani. This feeling of marginality was true for the Egyptians in Brooklyn as well. Alone, estranged, and often far from family, they turned to the mosque to find companionship and consolation. Islam was more than a faith - it was an identity.

The author makes incisive remarks about the city of Hamburg in Germany in relation to the 9/11 attack. In 1999, Hamburg was the most prosperous city in Germany, with more millionaires per capita than any other metropolitan area in Europe. It was a bourgeois libertarian stronghold and a haven for foreign students and refugees. About 200,000 Muslims were among them, including Mohammed Atta of 9/11. They could stay as long as they wanted, paid no tuition, and could travel anywhere in the European Union. Germany’s recent past of xenophobia and racism left its historical scars on the laws of the country and the character of the German people. The new Germany had enshrined tolerance in its constitution, including the most openhanded political asylum policy in the world. Its laws allowed acknowledged foreign terrorist groups to operate, raising money and recruits. It was not even against the law to plan a terrorist operation, so long as the attack took place outside the country. Many extremists welcomed such a safe harbor. The federal police preferred to concentrate their efforts on native right - wing elements, paying little attention to the foreign groups. Germany feared itself, not outsiders. Mohammed Atta was a student in Hamburg. Just like Sayyid Qutb before him in the US, Atta too had trouble coming to terms with Germany’s liberal sexual values and women’s freedom. He wrote in his will, “No pregnant woman or disbeliever should ever visit my grave. Those who wash my body should not touch my genitals”. The author says such a statement in the will invites psychological inquiries. He believes Atta’s turn to terror had as much to do with his own conflicted sexuality as it did with the clash of civilizations.

The book brings out some contrasts in the ways jihadi groups and the security agencies functioned. Al-Qaeda, as a jihadist group, had members who understood its goals and what they, as Islamists, wanted to accomplish. They also grasped the reasons they always had to operate in a secretive manner without letting the family or the broader community know about their activities. For example, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of 9/11, had a clear grasp of what he wanted in a Jihadi. The Jihadi must be a Muslim, can read and speak English, and know the lifestyle of Americans and Europeans. He must be smart and intelligent enough to feel comfortable in the West, but frustrated enough to commit destruction. In contrast, the CBI and the FBI often operated at odds with each other because of a lack of trust in the other’s processes and institutions. Besides, both organizations had few Arab-American operatives to penetrate the Jihadist outfits. Few agents spoke fluent Arabic. Al-Qaeda and its members displayed passion, devotion and an intense zeal. The FBI and CIA often exhibited frustration at each other and a lack of knowledge about Islam, the Quran, and its modern-day holy warriors.

I felt that a similar picture persists even with Western journalists or academics who have researched Islamic extremism. Western journalists give high levels of importance to the roles played by leaders such as Osama bin Laden, Mullah Omar, or Ayman-al-Zawahiri. Indian, Pakistani and Arab journalists focus more on the foot soldiers like Mohammed Atta, who carry out the attack. The Egyptian journalist, Yosri Fouda, says that these foot soldiers are available in plenty in the Arab world and they are ready to die and become martyrs. Mohammed Atta was smart enough to learn to fly a commercial jet and direct it head-on towards the WTC. But life had frustrated him enough to make him so angry as to give up his life doing it.

The book’s title derives from a Koranic verse which states, “Death will find you, even in the looming tower”. The prose is excellent, and the content is thought-provoking.

This book is really worth reading, even if you think you've had your fill of Al Queda, 9-11 et al. The histories of Bin Laden and Zawahiri are interesting and surprising, and this book really lays out how the CIA and FBI blew their chances to stop 9/11. If you're not already disgusted by them, this will get you there. Despite its depressing subject matter, the book is actually a pleasure to read, because the writing and story-telling are so good. This dude has knowledge!