Perfect Soldiers

The 9/11 Hijackers

Terry McDermott

• Publisher: HarperCollins e-books
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN:
  9780060584702
• eBook ISBN:
  9780061852961
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: Politics & International Relations

"The definitive book on the nineteen men who brought such devastation and terror to this country . . . a well-told, meticulously researched cautionary tale." — Washington Post Book World
The attacks of September 11, 2001, were a calamity on a scale few had imagined possible. In their aftermath, we exaggerated the men who perpetrated the attacks, shaping hasty and often mistaken reporting into caricatures we could comprehend—monsters and master criminals equal to the enormity of their crime. In reality, the 9/11 hijackers were unexceptional men, not much different from countless others. It is this ordinary enemy, not the caricature, that we must understand if we are to have a legitimate hope of defeating terrorism.
Using research undertaken in twenty countries on four continents,  Los Angeles Times correspondent Terry McDermott provides gripping, authoritative portraits of the main players in the 9/11 plot. With brilliant reporting and thoughtful analysis, McDermott brings us a clearer, more nuanced, and in some ways more frightening, understanding of the landmark event of our time.
"The very best [book] available . . . on the subject." — Los Angeles Times
"Absorbing. . . . [A] richly textured narrative full of the sort of small, telling details that turn these men from faceless figures of evil into individuals." — New York Times
"Bound to become one of the most insightful books ever published about September 11." — Houston Chronicle
"Offers riveting accounts of the final weeks and days as the plotters prepared to carry out their horrific mission." — Booklist
"Chilling." — Kirkus Reviews
"This is journalism at its best." —Seymour M. Hersh, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist
"Engrossing and deeply disturbing." — Publishers Weekly

Searchable Terms

Note: Entries in this index, carried over verbatim from the print edition of this title, are unlikely to correspond to the pagination of any given e-book reader. However, entries in this index, and other terms, may be easily located by using the search feature of your e-book reader.

Abdallah, Shadi, xii

Abdel-Wahab, Razan, 29

Abdul Karim, Abdul Basit. See Yousef, Ramzi

Abdul Karim, Abdul Karim, 114, 118, 128, 136, 139, 285n 2

Abdullah, Khalil A., 114

Abu Dahdah (Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas), xii, 223–24

Afghanistan

Al Qaeda in, 174–75

Al Qaeda entry point, 172

Arab jihadists fighting in, xiii, 35, 41–42, 94–99, 96, 103–6, 118–19, 121–25, 127–28, 218

Azzam and, xiii, 93–99, 101, 103, 120, 121, 124–25, 126, 155

Bin Laden in, 102, 121–22, 125, 159–61, 173, 174–75, 176–77

coup, 1973, 93

funding by U.S., Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and others, 96–98, 120, 122, 124, 125–26, 217

Hekmatyar, Gulbuddin, xiii, 104–5, 120, 125

Jalalabad, 159

Jalalabad, battle of, xiii, 123–25

Jaji, Battle of the Lion’s Den, 121–22

jihad training camps in, 57–58, 88–89, 103, 127, 141, 143, 160, 168, 171–73, 176, 194, 201–2

Kabul, 93, 103–4, 124, 159

Massoud, 125, 283n 35

Mullah Omar, xiii, 138, 159, 173

Muslim Brotherhood, 105

Najibullah government, 123, 124

Pashtuns, 95, 103, 105

Peshawar base for refugees and resistance, 93–99, 118–19, 129

Pol-e-Charkhi prison, 104

Rabbani, Burhanuddin, xiii, 120–21, 173

Sayyaf and, xiii, 103–6, 119–20, 121, 123, 129

Shah, Wali Khan, xiii, 140

Soviet Union war, 35, 41–42, 93, 110, 122–23, 155, 281n 7, 284n 44

Tajiks, xiii, 173

Taliban, xiii, 138, 159–61, 173, 217, 288n 12

Yemen support of mujahideen, 41–42

Zawar Kili camp, 176

Ahmedzai, Ahmed Shah, 126

Ajaj, Ahmad Mohammed, 131, 285n 19

Albrecht, Thorsten, 63–64

Ali, Ali Abdul Aziz, xii

family ties to terrorists, xii, 228

financing of hijackers in U.S. and, xii, 196, 296n 14, 301n 26

U.S. visa denied, 228

Al Jihad publication, 51

Al Nur Mosque, Hamburg, 74, 78

Al Qaeda (...

Table of contents

• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Contents
• Key Figures
• Preface
• Prologue: Welcome
• Book One: Soldiers
• Book Two: The Engineer
• Book Three: The Plot
• Appendix A: Mohamed el-Amir’s Last Will and Testament
• Appendix B: The Last Night
• Appendix C: Bin Laden’s 1996 Declaration of War Against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places (abridged)
• Appendix D: Bin Laden’s 1998 Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders
• Notes
• Selected Bibliography
• Acknowledgments
• Searchable Terms
• About the Author
• Praise
• Copyright
• About the Publisher