Race Against Terror: Chasing an Al Qaeda Killer at the Dawn of the Forever War

I hesitated upon picking this book to enter because he has a different political slant than I do. But it was well organized, researched and skillfully written. So now I will not be so timid about reading Jake Tapper's books.

The focus was on trying to prosecute Spin Ghul. a nom de guerre for Ibrahim Adham Harum, a black religious terrorist trained in an Al Qaeda camp. He came from an area in Saudi Arabia where life for poor black peasants was hopeless. He made his way to Afghanistan to the camp. Training on Uzi s and Ak -74 rifles, he knew that this path lead to death. So he requested to make wasiyya, usually a last will and testement for most Muslims, but for Islamic terrorists, it meant a video tape showing their passion for Jihad and show more to give to their families if they died.

There is great background of the AUSAs who worked on the case. For myself, I enjoyed working witrh AUSAs in the Federal government and it was an exciting peek into their lives.

Another focus was on Jerod Dennis from Antlers, Oklahoma, His parents had an ugly split up while he was a kid. Maybe for attention, he became a class clown but probably growing up in a broken family was very hard on his and he wanted to escape. He got into trouble, skipping out on school, getting into drugs. He disappointed his grandmother, he was smart but going down the wrong road. He had a meeting with a recruiter and got excited about that. His family knew the military life was very risky but maybe he would shape up.

Spin Ghul and Jerod Dennis, now nineteen years old were at the same place on a certain day in Afghanistan.

Jake Tapper interviewed so many people over three years to gather the pieces of this story of the two men, the investigators, prosecutors and defenders together into a coherent and exciting story.

I would recommend this book to learn more about terrorism and the legal aspects of procecution and much more. show less

Chasing information on a terror attack in time to bring the killer to trial