security services, assassinated, or have gone into hiding, and I have noted those in the list of interviewees.) Of course, many interviewees chose to remain anonymous.
I have also drawn on documents filed in criminal cases involving jihadist militants in the United States, Italy, Belgium, Spain, Germany, and the United Kingdom. And I have mined books written by al-Qaeda’s leaders and former Taliban officials; thousands of pages of transcripts of U.S. military tribunal proceedings of prisoners held at Guantánamo Bay; first-hand accounts about al-Qaeda from newspapers from around the Muslim world; and a trove of al-Qaeda-related documents and publications going back to the late 1980s that I have collected over the years.
I also used material derived from several hundred books that touch on aspects of the story and thousands of articles and government documents and other reports that I have collected on this subject, the most useful of which are referenced in the endnotes and bibliography. Also useful were the many publications and statements by al-Qaeda’s leaders or other militant strategists.
When it comes to transliterating Arabic names or terms, I have used conventional English spellings, for instance, Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda, and Omar Abdel Rahman.
Interviewees
Hassan Abbas
Dr. Abdullah
Zachary Abuza
David Albright
“Matthew Alexander”
Sydney Alford
Hazarat Ali
Imtiaz Ali
Jason Amerine
Abdullah Anas (Boudjema Bounoua)
Peter Arnett
Abdel Bari Atwan
Hussein al-Awadi
Salman al-Awdah
Hutaifa Azzam
Mahfouz Azzam
Robert Baer
Omar Bakri Mohamed
Kenneth Ballen
Arianna Barbazza
David Barno
Khaled Batarfi
Milt Bearden
Noman Benotman
James Bernazzan
Gary Berntsen
Benazir Bhutto (Assassinated in Pakistan in 2007)
Stephen Biddle
Cofer Black
Antony Blinken
Jason Burke
Daniel Byman
Vincent Cannistraro
Yigal Carmon
Frank Cilluffo
Peter Clarke
Richard A. Clarke
Jack Cloonan
Eliot Cohen
David Cohen
Daniel J. Coleman
Aukai Collins
Elizabeth Colton
Conrad Crane
Roger Cressey
Henry “Hank” Crumpton
Robert Dannenberg
Mohammed Daud
Essam Deraz
James Dobbins
Brian Doyne
Joshua Dratel
Assad Durrani
Jason Dye
Paul Eedle
Karl Eikenberry
Charles “Sam” Faddis
Saad al-Fagih
Christine Fair
William J. Fallon
Mahmoun Fandy
Khaled al-Fauwaz (Jailed in the UK in 1998)
Yosri Fouda
Tommy Franks
Joe Frost
“Dalton Fury”
Brad Garrett
Baltasar Garzon
Fawaz Gerges
Abdul Rashid Ghazi (Killed by Pakistani security forces in 2007)
Susan Glasser
David Gordon
Karen Greenberg
Robert Grenier
Stephen Grey
Alain Grignard
Abdul Rahman al-Hadlag
Stephen Hadley
Mohammed Hafez
Moinuddin Haider
Hamid al-Haiys
Kemal Halbawy
Abu Hamza (Mustafa Kamel Mustafa, jailed in the UK in 2004)
Abdul Haq Hanif (Jailed in Afghanistan)
Sami ul-Haq
Husain Haqqani
Ali Hatem
Neil Herman
Thomas Hegghammer
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar (In hiding)
Andrew Higgins
Bruce Hoffman
Richard Holbrooke
Pervez Hoodbhoy
Ed Husain
Zahid Husain
Mansoor Ijaz
Faraj Ismail
Jamal Ismail
Imdadullah (Jailed in Afghanistan)
Abd al-Jabbar
Saad al-Jabri
Wael Jalaidan
Sadritdin Jalilov
Said Jawad
Sterling Jensen
Seth Jones
Sydney Jones
Peter Jouvenal
Fred Kagan
Hekmat Karzai
Rita Katz
Art Keller
Jack Keane
John Kerry
Mullah Abdul Samad Khaksar (Assassinated in Kandahar in 2006)
Jamal Khalifa (Murdered in Madagascar in 2007)
Rhamad Khan
Ismail Khan
Jamal Khashoggi
Khalid Khawaja (Assassinated by Taliban in 2010)
David Kilcullen
Daniel Kimmage
Osama bin Laden (In hiding)
Arif Lalani
William Lambert
Robert Lambert
Patrick Lang
Carie Lemack
Clare Lockhart
Douglas Lute
Norine MacDonald
Jean MacKenzie
Michael Maloof
Michele Malvesti
Omar Khan Masoudi
Ahmad Shah Massoud (Assassinated in Afghanistan in 2001)
Brett McGurk
John McLaughlin
Richard Melton
Joseph Melrose
John Miller
Khary Miller
Hamid Mir
Assaf Moghadam
Haji Deen Mohammed
Saad Mohseni
Vahid Mojdeh
Rolf