Death will find you

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Death will you find ( english The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 ) is a non-fiction book of the American writer Lawrence Wright from the year 2006 on the creation of the terrorist network al-Qaeda , the backgrounds of various terrorist attacks and how they were investigated and the events leading up to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks . The author won the Pulitzer Prize in the non-fiction category in 2007 with the book .

Emergence

Lawrence Wright researched al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden from 2001 to 2005. The research required months of study abroad, during which Wright conducted hundreds of interviews. Using the biographies of Osama bin Laden , his vice Aiman ​​az-Zawahiri , the top FBI terrorist investigator John P. O'Neill and the Saudi prince and secret service chief Turki ibn Faisal , Wright describes the developments of the events from Egypt in 1948 to the mountains Afghanistan in March 2002. The bibliography lists over 200 references and the appendix lists over 400 interviewees by name. After the prologue, the book is divided into 20 chapters.

content

The non-fiction book deals with the people and thought leaders involved in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, their motives and personalities and how they interacted with each other. The book begins with the Egyptian religious theorist Sayyid Qutb , who visited the United States in the late 1940s and returned to his native Egypt as an anti-Western Islamist , where he was hanged as a martyr in 1966 for his beliefs . It also portrays the life of Aiman al -Zawahiri, from his childhood in Egypt to his involvement and leadership of the Egyptian terrorist organization al-Jihad to the merger of his organization with al-Qaida. The terrorist attacks on the United States' embassies in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi on August 7, 1998 are described in exactly the same way as the speedboat attack on the US guided missile destroyer USS Cole (DDG 67) on October 12, 2000.

Osama bin Laden is the person who is most fully described, from his childhood in Saudi Arabia in a wealthy family, his participation in the jihad against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan , his role as financier of terrorist groups, his stay in Sudan until his return to Afghanistan and its relations with the Taliban .

Wright also describes in detail some of the Americans involved in the proceedings, notably Richard Clarke , a senior anti-terrorist for the United States National Security Council , and John P. O'Neill, a special agent for the FBI who was involved in the prosecution of Bin Laden worked until he became head of security at the World Trade Center after his retirement in August 2001 and died there in the air raids. The book also describes problems of a lack of cooperation between the law enforcement agency FBI and the foreign intelligence service CIA as well as other US federal agencies, which prevented a timely investigation of the terrorist attacks.

The non-fiction book deals mainly with the people involved and does not describe in detail the exact preparation and implementation of the terrorist attacks, instead it illuminates the background and circumstances that brought about the planning and executing actors, as well as those that prevent the terrorism against the USA should.

Book title

The English term "looming towers" or "lofty towers" (« بروج مشيدة») Of the English book title comes from the Koran (Sūrat an-Nisā ' ). According to Wright, Osama bin Laden quoted the following verse three times (4:78) at a wedding prior to the September 11, 2001 attacks:

«أينما تكونوا يدرككم الموت ولو كنتم في بروج مشيدة»

"Aynamā takūnū yadrikkumu l-mawtu wa-law kuntum fī burūǧin mušayyadatin"

"Wherever you are, death will find you, even if you are in lofty towers."

"Wherever you may be, death will find you, and if you were in the high tower."

The German book title Death will find you also references this verse. The German version was translated by Stefan Gebauer and Hans Freundl and was published on August 17, 2007.

Awards

Reviews

“In 'The Looming Tower', Lawrence Wright describes the dark, bizarre life of very unsympathetic men in all their prosaic curiosity and earthly perplexity. Quirky details and scenes of failure replace the well-known legends about Bin Ladin and his people. "

- Nils Minkmar : Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

“The reports Wright published in the New Yorker over the next few years form the basis of the book. But with 'Death will find you' he goes much further. No one has described the deadly consequence of the relationship between al-Zawahiri and bin Laden, the oppressive feeling of the American authorities and, above all, the spiritual, ideological and cultural world of Islamism as precisely and confidently in an unideological way as Wright. In the USA he has long been considered the leading expert on the subject, his book as a standard work. "

- Andrian Kreye : Süddeutsche Zeitung

Lawrence Wright, as the long list of interviewees for The Looming Tower makes obvious, falls into the former category. Though much of what he recounts is well known, the authority with which he describes 'al-Qaeda's road to 9/11' is uncommon. There is sufficient new material or, at least, sufficient additional detail on episodes that were not previously properly understood to make the book well worth reading. "

“Lawrence Wright, as can be seen from the long list of respondents, falls into the former category. Although much of what he reports is already well known, the source he uses to describe al-Qaeda's path to September 11th is unusual. There is plenty of new ingredient, at least additional details about incidents that were not adequately understood before, and that make the book worth reading. "

- Jason Burke : The Guardian

“A marvelous book. The Looming Tower is not just a detailed, heart-stopping account of the events leading up to 9/11, written with style and verve, and carried along by villains and heroes that only a crime novelist could dream up. It's an education, too - though you'd never know it - a thoughtful examination of the world that produced the men who brought us 9/11, and of their progeny who bedevil us today. "

“An excellent book. The Looming Tower is not just a detailed, breathtaking depiction of the events that led up to September 11th, written with style and pizzazz and carried by criminals and heroes that only a crime writer can create. It is also a training - though you go unnoticed - a careful examination of a world that produces men who taught us 9/11 and whose descendants haunt us today. "

- Dexter Filkins : The New York Times

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Britta Bode: Osama Bin Laden was a "Bonanza" fan. In: The world . September 9, 2007, accessed August 18, 2015 .
  2. ↑ a b Lawrance Wright: Reading sample . In: buecher.de . (PDF; 581 kB)
  3. ↑ Harry Kreisler: Lawrence Wright Interview. In: The Institute of International Studies, University of California, Berkeley . November 13, 2006. Retrieved August 17, 2015 (American English).
  4. ^ A b Nils Minkmar : Bin Ladin's chaos troop. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . August 12, 2007, accessed February 2, 2020 .
  5. ↑ Andrian Kreye : Death will find you. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . August 18, 2007, accessed February 2, 2020 .
  6. ↑ Jason Burke: The Looming Tower. In: The Guardian . September 10, 2006, Retrieved February 2, 2020 (UK English).
  7. ^ Dexter Filkins: The Plot Against America. In: The New York Times . August 6, 2006, Retrieved February 2, 2020 (American English).