Disruption
Inside the Largest Counterterrorism Investigation in History
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3.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of the Year
Neave Book Prize shortlist
Al Qaeda did not stop after 9/11. Its reign of terror continued with bombings and mayhem across Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. But its frustration grew as the group failed to fundamentally undermine America and its allies.
Five years later the time was ripe for another spectacular mega-plot. Fresh from masterminding the London Underground carnage, one veteran operative set in motion a new operation to destroy passenger aircraft over the Atlantic Ocean—and kill thousands of people in the process.
Disruption tells the story of that conspiracy and the heroic efforts by the intelligence services of the United States, Great Britain, and Pakistan to uncover and crush it. From the streets of London to the training camps of Pakistan to the corridors of power in Washington DC, the story unfolds with murders, double-crosses, probes, jailbreaks, and explosions.
Former counterterrorism analyst Aki J. Peritz brings the story to life with vivid imagery, interviews with top intelligence officials, and never-before-seen declassified documents. Disruption is the not-to-be-missed account of the race to stop a terrorist conspiracy that would have remade our world—forever.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
National security analyst Peritz (Find, Fix, Finish) delivers a hair-raising look at a terrorist plot foiled by British and U.S. intelligence agencies in 2006. He tracks the plot's mastermind, Rashid Rauf, from Birmingham, England, where he grew up in "a strict religious home" in the 1990s, to Pakistan, where he fled after becoming a suspect in his uncle's murder, and joined a Kashmiri jihadist network with links to al-Qaeda. In July 2005, operatives trained by Rauf launched two "coordinated suicide attack" on London's transportation system, one of which was unsuccessful. Seeking to "shake the infidels to their core," Rauf plotted to bring down seven passenger planes with small, liquid hydrogen peroxide–based bombs that could be disguised as bottles of soda. British intelligence services already had members of his terrorist cell under surveillance, however, and observed them buying large quantities of hydrogen peroxide and other bomb-making materials. Many of the conspirators were eventually convicted in British courts, but Rauf escaped from Pakistani custody and was likely killed in a CIA drone strike or Pakistani air strike, though his death has never been officially confirmed. Peritz gets deep into the weeds of the various terrorist cells involved, but paints a detailed portrait of a tragedy narrowly averted. Readers will gain new appreciation for what it takes to stop the next terrorist attack.
