Bruce Riedel: The Search for al Qaeda October 14, 2008

Seven years and two wars after the attacks of 9/11, Osama bin Laden remains at large and al Qaeda is still a global threat. Yet most Westerners remain mostly in the dark about what al Qaeda is, and what it wants. In The Search for al Qaeda (Brookings, 2008), longtime CIA analyst and Brookings Senior Fellow Bruce Riedel offers a comprehensive analysis of the terrorist network—its origins, leadership, ideology and strategy. Tackling misperceptions and half truths, he sets the record straight on the dangerous terrorist movement and provides a strategy for defeating this menace.

Riedel draws on his 30 years of intelligence and policy-making experience in profiling the four most important figures in the al Qaeda movement: bin Laden, its creator and charismatic leader; ideologue Ayman al-Zawahiri, its Egyptian co-leader and principal spokesman; Abu Musaib al-Zarqawi, leader of al Qaeda in Iraq until his death in 2006; and Mullah Omar, its Taliban host.

Bruce Riedel is a senior fellow in Foreign Policy and the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. A frequent media contributor on terrorism and national security, he served in the CIA for nearly 30 years, advising three U.S. presidents on Middle East and South Asian issues. He was in the White House Situation Room during the 9/11 attacks, serving as special assistant to the president and National Security Council senior director for Near East Affairs. From 2003 to 2006, Riedel was an adviser to NATO in Brussels.

Official Website: http://www.booksite.com/texis/scripts/community/eventdetail.html?sid=1425&cal=4&eventid=48bf04c232