Dimensions
140 x 214 x 41mm
'The Osama Bin Laden I Know' offers an astounding, unparalleled portrait of Osama bin Laden based on Bergen's interviews with over 50 people who know bin Laden personally.
From his half-brother to his high school English teacher to an early Al Qaeda member who later became a US informant, individuals recount their experiences of the man who has hunted the popular imagination and eluded the strongest military in the world for the past four years.
No one knows more about Osama bin Laden than Peter Bergen. In 1997, well before the world suddenly became aware of bin Laden, Bergen met with him, and has followed his activities ever since. In Bergen's own experience, bin Laden "presented himself as a soft-spoken cleric, rather than as the firebreathing leader of a global terrorist organisation". Today, years after President Bush swore to get him dead or alive and despite being one of the world's most notorious individuals, bin Laden remains shrouded in mystery and obscured by the barrage of facts, details, and myths that have swirled around him since 9/11. What is it about this man that draws hundreds of thousands of followers to him, and makes men willing to fly airplanes into buildings at his command?
This accessible and authoritative portrait, derived from the first-hand accounts of some of bin Laden's most intimate acquaintances, gives the first true, enduring insight into a man who has declared the West his greatest enemy.
