The Rise of Militant Islam

A former British Ministry of Defence staff member examines the mistakes made by Western intelligence in evaluating the threat of militant Islam.

At the end of the Cold War, the proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction replaced the Soviet Union as the new enemy of world peace. The significance of militant Islam's growing disgust with Western foreign policy and apparent indifference to the suffering of Muslims worldwide was missed until it was too late.


In The Rise of Militant Islam, Anthony Tucker-Jones examines from an insider's perspective how Western intelligence misinterpreted every landmark event on the road to 9/11 and ultimately failed to curb global jihad.


The author, who served in the Defence Intelligence Staff, the British Ministry of Defence's top intelligence assessment organisation, gained an unparalleled insider's view of the growing war on terror and how the West's intelligence agencies were wrong-footed at almost every turn.


He traces the rise of international terrorism and its networks throughout the Muslim world, in Afghanistan, the Balkans, Algeria, Chechnya, Somalia and across the Middle East and uncovers the connections between them. He shows how the key to the growth of Al-Quaeda as a global terrorist organisation was not only the emergence of Osama bin Laden, but also the growing understanding of asymmetrical warfare, which the CIA had taught anti-Soviet jihadists in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

Praise for The Rise of Militant Islam
"A highly detailed and thought-provoking book which chronicles the Western powers campaigns against the threat of militant Islam. This is a very detailed and well written book which does not demonize or idolize the Islamic terrorist and is not slow to criticize Western policy." —History of War
"This book explains very eloquently how the West ended up needlessly fighting a two-front war at the beginning of the millennia and how we could have avoided it if only we had exercised greater foresight and heeded the growing warning signs that Al-Qaeda and its leader meant business. . . . What sets The Rise of Militant Islam apart is the breadth and scope of the analysis and its central concept. . . . Highly recommended." —Nick Harvey, MP, Liberal Democrat Minister of State for the Armed Forces