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Al Qaeda 2.0In the past month al Qaeda has relaunched itself, a rebranding that presages a second phase its war against the West. Where once al Qaeda attacked, for the most part, only American military, governmental and symbolic targets the group is now focusing on a wide range of western and economic targets. This repositioning […]

THE author of Holy War Inc, a best-selling book on al-Qaeda, said the impact of the Bali bombing does not depend on whether the culprits are directly linked to Osama bin Laden’s terror network.
“It doesn’t really matter in the end,” said Peter Bergen. “Let’s say it is nothing to do with al-Qaeda. Is that a cause for comfort? I don’t think so. Because then, we are moving into a new phase of leaderless resistance, where people are doing things on their own.” Bergen compared al-Qaeda and associated groups to a cluster of grapes: both tied together and separate. Some groups share training and personnel with al -Qaeda; others identify more with its ideology and outlook.

With a top al-Qaeda expert as the guide, Nuclear Terrorism: Blinding Horizons offers a credible, chilling journey through scenarios many news organizations ignore and many viewers avoid.
Peter Bergen, the author of Holy War Inc., examines Osama bin Laden’s nuclear plotting and the security lapses at Russian nuclear facilities that terrorists could exploit. “Two important things about al-Qaeda: They’re extremely patient,” Bergen says in a phone interview. “They took two years to plan Sept. 11. And with this group, all bets are off. They could care less about how many people they kill.”

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Investigators cleared debris and gathered forensic evidence Sunday from the site of two explosions and subsequent fires that killed at least 182 people on the Indonesian tourist island of Bali.
Many of the victims were Australian tourists. Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said “preliminary indications” suggested that an Islamic radical group could be behind the attack.

(Washington, D.C. September 18, 2002) One of the most disturbing legacies of September 11th is the realization that no threat scenario is impossible.

PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: An audiotape is being analyzed this morning to try to determine whether it is, indeed, the voice of Osama bin Laden, warning of more terrorist attacks. The two-minute tape was first aired yesterday on the Al-Jazeera television network.

CNN Terrorism Analyst Peter Bergen (CNN) — Ramzi Binalshibh — an al Qaeda operative who has acknowledged he participated in the September 11 terror planning — was captured last week in Pakistan after a shootout. Now that Binalshibh is in U.S. custody, the objective will be to get him to talk about possible future terrorist […]

MARGARET WARNER: To analyze the present state and strength of al-Qaida, we’re joined by Peter Bergen, author of Holy War Inc.: Inside the Secret World of Osama bin Laden. In 1997, he interviewed bin Laden for CNN, where he now serves as a terrorism analyst. And Rohan Gunaratna, author of Inside al-Qaida Global Network of Terror. He’s a research fellow at the Center for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at the University of Saint Andrews, in Scotland. And welcome to you, both.

Caveat emptor. A tidal wave of tomes related to the Sept. 11 anniversary is washing up at your local bookstore as you read this. Some of these are data dumps from the police blotter, others the sad tales of victims and their families. Still others weave conspiracy theories purporting to show that energy interests in Central Asia shaped American policy toward Osama bin Laden or that “state sponsors” such as Iran or Iraq play important roles in his organization.

I quit my job at CNN in the autumn of 1999, to start working full time on a book about Osama bin Laden. I had become interested in the mysterious multimillionaire Saudi after I met him in eastern Afghanistan in 1997, and spent most of the next four years trying to understand the man. Finally, at the end of August last year, I gave my manuscript to my publisher. Having worked for more than a decade in the news business there were many things I did not understand about publishing, not least the seemingly geological time scale on which publishers work.