"We must have the Quran in one hand and a Kalashnikov in the other."
This book is the shocking diary of the three months which Mohamed Sifaoui spent undercover as part of an Al Qaeda cell from October 2002 to January 2003.
While covering a terrorist trial in the autumn of 2002, Sifaoui, an Algerian-born journalist, came into contact with members of an active Al Qaeda group in Paris. Drawing on his own background, he invented a false name, address, and personal history, and was able to convince them that he shared their aims and rapidly win their trust.
Posing as Djamel Mostaghanemi, a pro-fundamentalist journalist, Sifaoui recorded and filmed his new associates speaking with alarming frankness about how they attract new recruits to the Jihad, raise funds, spread propaganda, and, most chillingly of all, identify suitable targets for terrorist attack.
Facing the possibility of exposure at all times, Sifaoui was at great personal risk throughout, never more so than when he penetrated deeper into the organisation's hierarchy and was invited to meetings in London, Al Qaeda's nerve centre in Europe.
This account of his infiltration of the network is a unique and compelling opportunity to eavesdrop on the most deadly terrorist network in the world.
