The Inside Story of 9/11 and the War Against al-Qaeda

Highly recommended. In depth telling by young, "arab-speaking" former FBI counter-terrorism agent. His own background living as a Lebanese child during wartime. His childhood experiences, superior intellect, dedication to our country, our safety and the truth. This along with his youth, language skills, and personality appeared to make for easier establishment of trust with detainees. Believes that the belief in trust paramount to gaining accurate info. Says no way we should use torture because it produces false info. Examples throughout. It's rough reading because there are so many 25 letter names of the bad guys. Maybe the names and their name changes could have been edited somehow. I don't need to know every name and nickname these guys went under because it really slows down the flow of the book. It's hard to just skip over it.

This book covers al-Qaeda and all similar aspects in very specific depth. It moves fast and is jammed with tons of information that, unless you are a current events major with a background in terrorism, will go right over your head. It does contain some disturbing facts about our role in this whole deal--- corruption, money, and the like---- but it is an extremely slow book to read if you want to digest or understand it. Not for casual--- for the serious historian only.

I read this book since I have a personal interest in the current and recent past terrorist activity which has affected us, as potential victims of future acts of terrorism, and realize the difficulty of these investigations.

I have great admiration for the author and his colegues for their sacrifices made in pursuit of truth. It was very troubling to read the truth about the lack of integrity and character for those in the top leadership of our government.

The Black Banners by Ali Souofan certainly gives the reader a different perspective on the use of enhanced interrogation techniques which have been used on our terrorist enemies. It is an engrossing book and would be worth anyones time to read.

The Black Banners by Ali Souofan certainly gives the reader a different perspective on the use of enhanced interrogation techniques which have been used on our terrorist enemies. It is an engrossing book and would be worth anyones time to read.

As a student of international relations, this book was incredibly informative about al-Qaeda in the run up to and immediately after 9/11. It goes into depth about the importance of knowing your enemy, as well as avoiding the dangerous mistake of only looking for the answers you want. Informative and interesting.

I read Lawrence Wright's book The Looming Tower and so when I saw the Reddit post by Mr. Soufan I was excited to read a book written by an FBI hero who had such a tremendous impact on terrorism. I immediately bought the book, ignoring any negative reviews or comments and started reading straight away.

Mr. Soufan introduces the book with a heartfelt apology for the censored sections of the book and provides good insight into how the redactions came to be. However this will not prepare the reader for the level of censorship the book contains.

The book is extremely well written and Mr. Soufan's accounts of events are thrilling, his insights spectacular and his personality extra-ordinary. These factors make it even more tragic that the book is at times unreadable because of censored sections. Its heartbreaking that entire paragraphs in key sections of the book are removed, not just names censored, but entire sections removed.

I really hope the issue with the censorship is resolved and someday I really look forward to reading a second or third edition with far less or even no censorship. However until then I have to rate a 5 star book with 2 stars, the censorship just destroys what could have been a truly great book.

My name is Ernst. When I first saw Rachel Maddow's interview with Ali H. Soufan, I was really curious about the book. I watched many other interviews of Mr. Soufan and became and fan. I haven't read a book from cover to cover in such a long time. At first I had some difficulties with the names and aliases. The more I read the book, the more interesting it became and the more I wanted to read it. Mr. Soufan did an excellent job writing this book despite the redactions. I highly recommend this book. I hope Mr. Soufan has future plans to write another book about this subject. Keep up the good work.

Beware! This book has been heavily redacted. In many cases, not a single line of text remains on the page -- in most other cases, just as one is being drawn into the account, the thread is completely lost because the resolution of the situation is entirely redacted. The remaining fragmented book is frustrating and tiring to read.

The author was blessed to have had this much excitement and experience packed into his time with the FBI. He takes readers along a long journey which keeps building momentum page by page. His faith in "traditional" interrogation techniques is most refreshing in these murky times when so many are willing to compromise with and adopt evil to fight evil. I have always found first and second generation Americans to be the most ardent believers in American values, probably because they are Americans by choice, not Americans by accident of birth, still unjaded, and know what the rest of the world is like in reality.

I have faith that many more such memoirs are in the pipeline as key players retire from the war that defined their generation, but I suspect few will be packed with such minute detail. Few of us can even dream of having Ali Soufan's successes, but everyone who has had the honor of representing the American people by talking face-to-face with the enemy shares his exhilaration and enthusiam. The experience is life-changing.

I have never seen a truly functional bureaucracy, but I hope that talented young Americans will see that careers in the FBI, CIA, NSA, and State Department are their best shots at exciting and productive lives. Some careers mean more than money.

I read "The Looming Tower" before this book and I was taken aback by the difference.

"The Black Banners..." is not as well-written, and I felt it. "The Black Banners" had more passive-speak...to illustrate, "The Black Banners" was more passive.

I read the whole book, but I was flummoxed for the first third. It was full of passive voice and government-speak. I kept going b/c I respected Ali Soufan, and it was worth it. I was glad to read the whole book.

This book is good; I would recommend people to read "The Looming Tower" fist and this book next.

There have been a large number of essays and books on Al-Qaeda and the 9/11 attacks over the past ten years. There are perhaps as many theories and conclusions about what the Al-Qaeda is like and what its goals are and why Muslims join them as well. Browsing through them and reading some of them in depth, I find that many of them are contradictory to one another. Some say that Al-Qaeda is a hierarchical, well-organized outfit while others say it is dysfunctional and ridden with internal dissensions. One cannot escape the feeling that the experts really do not have a handle on the problem of the fascination Al-Qaeda has for Muslims around the world. So, I didn’t have much of an inclination to read this book when it appeared on the bookstores. However, it is written by an Arabic-speaking Lebanese-American, who worked with the FBI for many years and was deeply involved in interrogating suspects on the WTC bombing in 1993, the bombings of the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam, the USS Cole attack in Yemen and finally, the 9/11 attacks. I thought his perspective and experience should be different and more authentic compared to what I have seen from many other journalists. I wasn’t disappointed.

The book is mainly about the investigations that the FBI did on the above-mentioned terrorist attacks, how they tracked down and captured the suspects and the perpetrators, how they were debriefed or interrogated and what the problems and impediments that the FBI faced in the process. It makes for quite an absorbing read if one is interested in such cloak and dagger stories. It is a rather voluminous book at more than 500 pages with many portions redacted because of the CIA’s objections to the content. I found the book providing a couple of insights - one, into the essence of interrogation of suspects and detainees and secondly, on the beliefs that drove Osama bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda members to do what they are doing.

Many journalists and experts in the past have opined that Al-Qaeda’s goal is to establish an Islamic Caliphate in the middle-east that would be run under Sharia Law, which will act as a catalyst to all Muslim lands to do likewise. Others have talked about Jihad being the duty of every Muslim and that Al-Qaeda wants to drive out infidels from the Holy land and from every other land belonging to Muslims. But Ali Soufan provides a different view. He says Al-Qaeda is inspired by the Hadith’s saying that “if you see black banners coming from Khurasan, join that army;even if you have to crawl over ice; no power will be able to stop them….and they will finally reach Baitul Maqdis (Jerusalem) where they will erect their flags…” . Khurasan refers to the modern day regions of eastern Iran, parts of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan. Though the pronouncement is not in the Quran but only in the Hadith, which is said to be written by others and not the Prophet, Al-Qaeda and many muslims believe it to be the exhortation of the Prophet himself and hence dedicate themselves to making this a reality. Soufan’s interrogations with captured Al-Qaeda operatives at many levels confirm this conclusion as well. Soufan is well-versed with the Quran and the Hadith and is often able to show the Al-Qaeda guys their false or incomplete understanding of both the Quran and the Hadith.

The book comes down hard on the decision of the Bush Administration to use Enhanced Interrogation Techniques, aka torture, in dealing with the captured Al-Qaeda operatives. The author says that they accomplish little by way of intelligence gathering. Rather, it forces the detainees to just say things that their tormentor wants them to say, simply to put an end to the pain inflicted. Soufan provides some key insights into interrogation approaches. He says that interrogation skills and knowledge cannot be picked up from doing just a few sessions. They come from studying a group and the subject deeply. It comes from lots of interrogation experience working alongside experts. Key to successful interrogation is to never let the suspect know that he is giving you information you didn't know. If he gets to know, it lessens the chances of his giving you more information as he realizes he's said too much. No two interrogations of two different detainees are ever the same. The detainees have different childhoods, different experiences in Al-Qaeda, different intellect. Hence, it is about playing what you know about the detainee against him and outwitting him. Soufan shows this in practice as he traps Abu Jandal, Osama’s bodyguard, in his own lies and ego; Ali al-Bahlul , Bin Laden’s secretary and propagandist, on his commitment to Al-Qaeda and his religious knowledge; L’Houssaine Kherchtou, an early Moroccan jihadi, on how Al-Qaeda declined to pay for his wife’s Caesarian section and with yet another detainee, using his childhood feelings toward his brother. Soufan found that Al-Qaeda’s upper echelons were dominated by Egyptians and that this caused resentment among the Gulf Arabs, who are used to seeing Egyptians widely working under them in the Gulf. He used this to his advantage to extract information. Another insight Soufan brings to this process is that you cannot get through to them while they are active in the organization, since they are busy planning or hiding or executing tasks. Only during the recruiting stage or when they are eventually caught is it possible to get through to them and make them sing. In a bizarre summing up, Soufan compares the interrogation process to Dating since we have greater degrees of success in dating if we know the date’s likes and dislikes!

Apart from this, the book talks about the lack of co-operation between the CIA and the FBI, the bureaucracy that impeded valuable information from being shared by the CIA with the FBI that could have prevented the 9/11 attacks and similar things that one is familiar with. Soufan also questions the approach of the Bush administration in dealing with terrorism as a ’war on terror’. His view is that it should be approached as a criminal act and dealt with through standard FBI investigation methods within the framework of the legal requirements of US laws.

At times, I felt that there is a bit self-promotion in the book as you come across statements bordering on “...if only they had done what I had suggested, we could have avoided big catastrophes like the USS Cole and so on…”. But one must overlook this because it is perhaps inevitable that in an intensive career in FBI, like that of Ali Soufan, there would always be such occasions and it is most likely true. However, some other conclusions made me feel that FBI operatives like Ali Soufan are so fully immersed in their jobs of debriefing suspects and capturing extremists that they lose the detached perspective of the ordinary citizen outside. For example, while talking about Abu Jandal’s debriefing, Soufan says that the Abu Jandal debriefing was the most successful interrogation of any Al-Qaeda operative and that it was immensely valuable in the war in Afghanistan. That may be true from his standpoint but a citizen outside the FBI would wonder what he is talking about as ‘success in Afghanistan’. After fifteen years of war in Afghanistan and a trillion dollars down the drain, the Taliban seems to be back in control there and many thousands more extremists are filling the ranks of ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Al-Nusra and myriad other organizations. According to retired general Jack Keane, Al-Qaida has grown fourfold in the five years between 2010 and 2015. ISIS, which began when the US pulled out politically and military from Iraq, grew from an organization less than 3,000 to an organization over 30,000 in three years. Radical Islamists are spread from Western Africa through the Middle East, all the way to the Indian sub-continent. Success in Abu Jandal’s debriefing seems to have been irrelevant to the larger goal of stopping the rise of Islamic extremism.

This book gives an important perspective on Al-Qaeda and the Torture-tolerant approach of the CIA in dealing with Islamic extremism. The title ‘Black Banners’ is probably not only inspired by the proclamation in the Hadith but also by the way the CIA bureaucracy has forced Ali Soufan to smear parts of the book with black lines all over them, reminiscent of a black banner. In some ways, the book shows how far we have moved away from our own ideals of democracy in the blind pursuit of the ‘War on Terror’.

I have a massive platonic respect-crush on Ali Soufan after reading his quietly remarkable book. Before reading this, I understood him to be a highly respected FBI agent who was an expert on Al-Qaeda and a staunch anti-torture figure. I now think this Lebanese-born Muslim is one of our finest Americans.

The Black Banners spends most of its pages explaining the people, structure, motivations, and actions of Al-Qaeda and its allies. Unlike many non-fiction books today, it’s not structured and written like a novel. There is no sensationalism, no calculated emotional drama, and because it deals with a complex subject, this is actually in places dense and sometimes boring reading. Why is this one of the finest compliments I could give?

What comes through, subtly, gently, and unmistakably is the character and professionalism of the author. He’s an FBI agent, trained to report facts clearly without filtering them through opinion, emotion, or bias. Writing about two of the most emotionally charged subjects of our time, terrorism and torture, he manages to do that without being cold or clinical. It’s very easy, especially for someone in a law enforcement culture, to take a clinical approach to horrifying scenes and events. What’s rare is someone like Ali. Just as he doesn’t let his emotions cloud his presentation of facts, he doesn’t let the horror of those facts overwhelm his humanity. He reports his own feelings and reactions with the same calm as he does the rest of the situation. He cried at crime scenes, grieved his former boss (killed on 9/11) and others lost to terrorism very deeply, and shows sincere humanity and caring for friends domestic and foreign. This is a man who, despite working through some of our most traumatizing modern events, displays clear affection for humanity and almost unimaginable emotional intelligence.

Ali Soufan was in Yemen investigating the USS Cole bombing, and manages to explain the complex political situation, the actions and identities of the extremists, the danger and lack of cooperation the investigators faced, the horror of the scene of the bombing, and still do justice to the good people he worked with there and the friendships formed.

Soufan goes on the face the loss of his friends in the 9/11 attacks, the discovery and knowledge that had the CIA not deliberately obstructed and concealed information those attacks could have been prevented, and has to watch as the CIA torture program as well as other government factions directly harm and obstruct vital intelligence gathering. He has cooperating detainees taken from him and tortured while he is denied the opportunity to intervene or even speak to them. He sees this result in more preventable terrorism as well as the intolerable incompetence and sadism of torture.

He has to help carry the FBI wreath to Ground Zero, crying not just in grief but in the knowledge that it could have been prevented. He has to go throw up in a bathroom when he learns of the information that had been kept from him when he had specifically asked for it, knowledge that could have been used to stop the attacks from happening.

I’ll be honest ....I’ve only read about these things, zero personal involvement, and the anger, betrayal, and sadness I’ve felt over them at times has verged on clinical depression. This man lived them and saw them, and retains a clarity, grace, and gift for factual, effective presentation that blows me away. I’d be a bitter emotional wreck. He’s still standing, still human, still humane and feeling and calm. He doesn't even daemonize the CIA as a whole, just places blame precisely at the feet of those few to whom it belongs. His attitude, intelligence, and pure effectiveness is what we as a country and its citizens should aspire to.

I suppose I should mention the redactions, which are of the “laughable but incredibly tragic and horribly revealing” variety. Soufan had to present the manuscript to the FBI for clearance prior to publication. The FBI didn’t have a problem with it, but passed it on to the CIA, which hit it with a redaction stick a few dozen times trying to break its spirit like a detained terrorism suspect. They failed just as horribly with the book as with the terrorists. The redactions are the most laughably transparent, obstructive bits of suicidal protectionism I’ve ever seen. They singlehandedly demonstrate as true every negative thing the author has to say about the CIA; the agency might has well have written an affidavit swearing their guilt.

The redactions range from laughable (they really hate the words “I” and “we” - apparently those are harmful to national security - as well as of course “CIA”) and completely nonsensical to sickening. The large swaths of text wiped out clearly refer to torture inflicted by CIA contractors, and to the harm it did to national security. Not knowing the details doesn’t keep the reader from knowing exactly what was being told, and makes it even more revolting because the mere fact that the agency is trying to conceal it automatically convicts them.

Anyway. This is not the most thrilling, gripping, moving, etc. book you’ll read on terrorism. It *is* the most complete, knowledgable, informative, and intelligent one you’ll read. Ali Soufan has since left the FBI, which makes me sad that we’ve lost to government service one of the finest investigators and intelligence agents we’ve ever had, as well as one of the quietly best human beings.

Actually did the audio book on CD: very effective, the reader sounds just like you would imagine the author sounds like. At first I got a bit lost in all the unusual names, but the important ones stand out, and it becomes a very effective way to consume the book. The redactions are bothersome, but perhaps less noticeable in an auditory format than the written word. There are a few chapters where it is obvious what the redactions are: the CIA insisted the author blank out all the first-person pronoun, you know: "I" and "we" I guess they hated the author. I dislike narratives where the author repeatedly criticizes his superiors, but Soufan presents the evidence that the CIA deserves criticism, (likewise the ambassador to Yemen.) Read this book and you will see what led to 9-11. Also an excellent argument why there are more effective interrogation techniques than torture, the problem is you need someone fluent in the language and culture of the enemy, and an enemy whose mission is done.

(I finished this book concurrently with other books examining Al Qaeda and the rise of ISIS in the Middle East and this review should be read in the context of the other books. A list of many of the books is at the bottom of this post.)

This book is a good picture of the hope and frustrations of an FBI agent in investigating Al Qaeda terrorism prior to 9/11 and trying to prevent an event like 9/11 from happening, and dealing with its increasingly brutal and complicated aftermath as America rushed to war and to prevent further attacks on its soil. "The aim of the book is to teach people how to understand Al Qaeda and how to defeat them in the future."
It is an important book on an important chapter of Western history and Soufan is well-equipped to tell it.

To better place this book into a larger context, I highly recommend reading Mohamedou Ould Slahi's Guantanamo Diary to verify much of what Soufan writes in frustration about the CIA and military's methods of rendition and "enhanced interrogation techniques" versus the FBI's methods. I also recommend Left of Boom by Douglas Laux for further substantiation (from an almost arrogant CIA perspective) of Soufan's claims and to contrast the life of a CIA agent with that of the FBI in the "War on Terror." I also recommend Najwa and Omar bin Laden's account of their lives and observation of Al Qaeda operatives in Sudan before 9/11 in Growing Up Bin Laden. Trofimov's The Seige of Mecca on the events of 1979 also provides good background to supplement the brief history of radicalism that Soufan describes.

Soufan contests many of the redactions made by the CIA and FBI in his book; in some cases, the CIA redacted sections that are public knowledge-- they were stated publicly on national television in interviews by various officials. Soufan seems to suspect CIA retalation in the senseless redactions. The redactions detract from the book for some commenters who have not read some of the other books above that are heavily redacted as well. (You get used to it.)

Soufan opens the book with an explanation of the origin of the black flag that Al Qaeda (and now more famously ISIS) flies. It comes from a hadith which describes a Muslim army marching on Jerusalem to establish the reign of the Mahdi:
"The Prophet Sallallahu ‘Alaihi Wa Sallam said: "Before your treasure, three will kill each other -- all of them are sons of a different caliph but none will be the recipient. Then the Black Banners will appear from the East and they will kill you in a way that has never before been done by a nation." Thawban, a companion said: 'Then he said something that I do not remember by heart' then continued to say that the Prophet, praise and peace be upon him, said: "If you see him give him your allegiance, even if you have to crawl over ice, because surely he is the Caliph of Allah, the Mahdi. If you see the black (meaning war) flags coming from Khurasan (Afghanistan), join that army, even if you have to crawl over ice, for this is the army of the Caliph, the Mahdi and no one can stop that army until it reaches Jerusalem."
(Son of Majah, Al Busiri, Al Hakim, Ahmad Nuaym, Ad-Daylami, Hasan, son of Sufyaan, and Abu Nuaym.)"
(the website a quote here gives many hadith origins of black flags and Mahdi prophecies).

Soufan, familiar with Islam as a native of Lebanon, explains the questionable reliability of the hadith, it appears to have been used in the mid-eighth century to support the rise of the Abbasids at the time. Soufan notes that many of the Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives he encountered could read little-to-no classical Arabic and did not have a grasp of the teachings of the Quran or hadiths beyond what they had been taught to believe. Al Qaeda today relies on the writings of 13th century clerics, living centuries after Muhammad. Soufan matched wits with captors, using an apologetic to reason with them about the hadiths, and writes that the West today must "outwit" the terrorists similarly. He finds that many joined to help support their families, and many turned after Al Qaeda funds began to dry up and the organization was unresponsive to their individual needs.

The author gives a brief history of Islamic radicalism, hitting on Qutb in Egypt in the 1960's, the seizure of the Grand Mosque in 1979 (see Trofimov), the various influences on Osama Bin Laden, the mixture of Salafis and Taqfiris in Saudi Arabia during the 1980s and the jihad against the USSR, and the history of the formation of Al Qaeda. In Sudan, Al Qaeda made a failed attempt to buy uranium before being forced to flee to Pakistan. (Soufan's timeline of Bin Laden's activities in Sudan match with the Bin Laden family's book.)Soufan was an FBI analyst, having joined out of college, when Al Qaeda bombed the embassies in Nairobi and he describes that investigation. He is critical of the Clinton Administration's retaliatory bombing of the pharmacy in Sudan, which was later shown to be a private company, and worse came unannounced and put FBI and CIA agents at risk all over the globe. (This attack's details were included in Christopher Hitchens' takedown of the Clintons in No One Left to Lie To).

Soufan spends time on mission in Albania before being urgently assigned to Jordan to work on the Millennium Plot against Los Angeles. He learns to interrogate effectively in Jordan, using his Arabic and cultural knowledge to his advantage. He finds disgruntled Al Qaeda members make good sources, many of the Saudis particularly resent Egyptians being in charge of various operations. The CIA clearly redacts much of his writing on intelligence that thwarted the plot.

Next came the investigation of the USS Cole, which was dangerous and difficult for FBI agents to do in Yemen. He writes critically of the US Ambassador in Yemen, Barbara Bodine, who undermined the FBI investigation and seemed intent on working for the Yemenis to the FBI's expense. She even denied a visa for one FBI agent, hindering the case (see PBS Frontline's The Man Who Knew). Yemen had no forensic science and Yemeni officials were either complicit with Al Qaeda, sympathetic to Al Qaeda, or wanted to enrich themselves and extort the United States. Soufan finds critical connections between the Nairobi bombing and the USS Cole's bombing, but the CIA would not cooperate, misinterpreted the FAISA (later confirmed by Congress' 9/11 Commission), and set a bad precedent. The author later finds that the CIA had information that could have helped connect the dots and perhaps prevent 9/11. Both the White House and State Department complained about the FBI's activities. Things did not improve after George W. Bush was elected President, he maintained silence on the FBI's findings that Al Qaeda was behind the attack because, after the narrow election, he did not want the public demanding a war in Afghanistan and so did not want it public that it was Bin Laden behind the attack. Bush even refused to meet with the families of victims. John O'Neill, the agent whose visa was denied by Amb. Bodine, resigned from the FBI disgruntled, and ironically died as Head of Security of the World Trade Center on 9/11 when the author was still investigating the USS Cole. Soufan is clearly angry at the lack of support for the investigation, particularly Amb. Bodine.

Soufan was one of the few who understood the significance of the assassination of Ahmad Shah Masoud in Afghanistan on the eve of 9/11. He writes that the profile of the 9/11 hijackers fit the profile of other Al Qaeda operatives-- they were not super-religious or all that knowledgeable about Islam or the Quran. Hence, they were seen drinking in strip clubs before the attack. Soufan vomits when he finally learns that the CIA had been sitting on critical information since January, 2000 that could have prevented 9/11 if they had shared it with the FBI. While the CIA denies that it did not pass the info, the 9/11 Commission agreed with Soufan that more sharing could/should have been done.

Meanwhile, the author proves himself a successful interrogator; his team identifies the top outside leadership of Al Qaeda. At this time, they learn about the Bali and SE Asia Al Qaeda cells. Soufan writes that CIA torture did not thwart the SE Asian plot on Los Angeles, it had already been foiled and revealed along with other plots by his more humane and routine FBI interrogation techniques. Soufan writes that CIA Director George Tene was "furious" over the successful Abu Zabayda interrogations and FBI successes. The Abu Zabayda section is Soufan's crowning moment, and much of it gets redacted by the CIA. You can tell from what isn't redacted that it's critical of the CIA and their techniques. At one point, the CIA takes charge and uses a psychologist with no interrogation experience to demand the use of manipulation and torture to extract information from suspects Soufan believes would have turned without torture. The FBI eventually raises enough concerns with Washington that people start to pay attention, FBI agents officially would not be party to the CIA's interrogation techniques. Later public reports confirm that the CIA used inexperienced officers (backed up by one agent's tale in Left of Boom) and made critical mistakes. The CIA later re-wrote history about arrests and timelines that suggest waterboarding worked just fine. Soufan uses publicly-available information to debunk them, as other authors have done.

Thanks partly to the CIA, Morocco released the highest-value al Qaeda suspect the US ever had. Guantanamo Bay demonstrates further failures of inexperienced workers in the military and the CIA who got little for torturing suspects. The Department of Defense considers itself above the law; at one point FBI finds itself in the awkward position of wanting to arrest Defense interrogators who were violating US law. The FBI would get inmates to cooperate after allowing them to make phone calls home, or not doing offensive things that might cause them to lose trust. Soufan recalls one telephone call from a high-ranking US general who had no qualms ignoring the Constitution. Soufan writes that the 2002 suicide bombing of the Yemeni oil tanker Maritime Jewel was preventable. The FBI tried to thwart the attack, but CIA intervention allowed it to happen. It is all quite sickening for the reader. It begs the question, how many more attacks could have been prevented? How much greater could the US standing be in the world, and how much more comfortable might we be with our conscience as a nation and our Constitution had the FBI's techniques won the day. We will never know. Soufan resigned in disgust in 2005. As I write this in 2016, the US has just elected a President who vowed even more torture to the sound of applause from thousands, while Soufan's story goes unheeded and unknown.

This book is a must-read if you're interested in the history of the War on Terrorism from the front lines. I give it 5 stars.
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Other books related
Foreign policy/Americans traveling in Middle East and Central Asia:
Between Two Worlds - Roxana Saberi (2.5 stars)
Children of Jihad - Jared Cohen (4 stars)
The Taliban Shuffle - Kim Barker (4 stars)
A Rope and a Prayer - David Rohde and Kristin Mulvihill
Left of Boom - Douglas Laux (3.5 stars)

Al Qaeda and ISIS books:
The Siege of Mecca - Yaroslav Trofimov (5 stars)
The Bin Ladens - Steve Coll (4 stars)
Growing Up Bin Laden - Najwa and Omar Bin Laden (4.5 stars)
Guantanamo Diary - Mohamedou Ould Slahi (4.5 stars)
The Black Banners - Ali Soufan (5 stars)
Black Flags - The Rise of ISIS - Joby Warrick (4.5 stars)
ISIS - Jessica Stern (4 stars)
ISIS Exposed - Eric Stakelbeck (2.5 stars)
The Rise of ISIS - Jay Sekulow (1 star)

In the introduction to the audio, the author reveals that some of the book has been redacted by the CIA. He doesn’t believe there is any reason for this, the CIA has no jurisdiction once the FBI has approved it, which they did, but still, they have made requested changes. He does not believe there are any secrets revealed in the book, but allowed the redacting so the book could be published on time. He has vowed to fight back and restore the book to its original state.
Born in Beirut, Lebanon, he was proud to be an American. Because he was brought up in a war torn country, he appreciated his life in America. When he interviewed for the job with the FBI, it was in response to a dare, but once he passed the interviews and exams, he decided he really did want to join. It excited him to be able to work to protect America. Admirably, he wanted to give something back to the country that had given him so much. Fluent in Arabic, he is perfect for the job. He began working there in 1998. His Middle Eastern background, and his assertiveness, helped him rise through the ranks and move ahead within the departments he was involved.
Soufan’s command of the Arabic language and his familiarity and understanding of the Koran was sometimes better than that of the prisoners he questioned. He believed that knowledge was key in questioning anyone, and he was often able to persuade those captured to confess when he was able to prove their beliefs, especially relating to Islam and the Koran, were inaccurate. He outsmarted many with his expertise. He did not believe in enhanced interrogation techniques or rendition, and according to his perception of events, he illustrates its failures. Many of his statements of fact seemed, indeed, however, to be a matter of opinion since there two distinctly diverse opinions exist about many of the events he describes.
Soufan provides information on several investigations, among which are the Kohl, 9/11, and Abu Ghraib and Bin Laden. He informs the reader about the background of many members of Al Quaeda, revealing their personalities and how they got to their positions and involvement in the organization, migrating over from the Mujahedeen. He also describes the personalities of the people he worked with in the FBI. Sometimes it felt to me like they had a good old boy group mentality; they “protected the herd”.
When describing his many investigations, he reveals the lack of cooperation existing in the government organizations with oversight. The CIA would not share information with the FBI, the ambassador to Yemen, Bodine, inhibited the investigation, being more concerned with protecting the Yemeni opinion and reaction to the United States, than with helping to capture terrorists and bringing those involved in the Kohl attack to justice.
The disorganization and lack of cooperation among the higher-ups in the CIA, the State Department, the FBI, and also the roadblocks set up by the ambassador to Yemen disrupted the investigations, and it is implied, perhaps led to the bombing of the World Trade Center. Had the information been shared, they might have been able to connect the dots and the outcome might have been different, not only for that attack, but for others as well. They were aware of many of the planners who implemented the process and also of many of those involved in the actual deeds. Had politics not played such a large role in many of the investigations, some alleged and/or suspected terrorist attacks might have been avoided.
There is a lot of information provided that I was not aware of and some that I cannot be certain was true. I wondered if some viewpoints and/or opinions given as facts, depended on political proclivities. It certainly sounded, at times, like the White House was at fault for many of the delays in the investigation and that may have led to unnecessary deaths. However, the author seems to lean left and does not seem to judge the left and right equally with regard to terrorism and its tactics. Also, for the most part, he blames everyone for all the failures except for the FBI, the agency for which he worked.
The book, as an audio, seemed too long and too detailed. The myriad names were confusing. The redacted and blank parts were enormously distracting and tedious, and quite frankly, annoying. Listening to words that literally said, blank said blank to blank, was meaningless. It could have been a really good book, but instead, it became mediocre. Perhaps they shouldn’t have rushed to publication, perhaps they should republish when they can get rid of the blank told this and the blank said this in blank location and provide the reader with real facts instead of blank ones.

Narrated by Neil Shah this book is a true account of FBI Special Agent Ali Soufan. Soufan started investigating the USS Cole bombing and was still doing so on 9/11/2001. He was soon involved in the search for Bin Laden. Ali's story tells of the conflict between the FBI and the CIA. According to this book the CIA kept information from the FBI that could have captured Bin Laden years earlier than he was. 

Soufan was an investigator and after several successful interrogations he became the FBI's most successful agent at outsmarting those alQaeda operatives who were captured. Then the CIA moved in with their Advanced Interrogation Techniques. Although they never worked, the CIA continued to use techniques that were close to torture.
And when Ali got information from high level terrorist the CIA took credit and claimed success due to their techniques. 

This is a long audiobook but it goes into great detail on the FBI's fight to stop terrorist attacks in the US. It has blank and redacted sections that the CIA didn't want released. This book tells the history and reasoning behind AlQaeda's actions. Be prepared for a version of events that you haven't heard from the news or government.

This is a must listen for anyone who wants the truth about the US's investigation of AlQaeda. You may be surprised at how dysfunctional it really was or is.

I bought this book for my own pleasure.

Ali H. Soufan, former Federal Bureau of Investigation interrogator and counter-terrorism operative, discloses the successes, failures, bureaucratic incompetence and turf protection of some federal agencies from al-Qaeda's declaration of war in 1996 through the death of Usama bin Ladin in 2012. Soufan is a Lebanese American who graduated in 1995 from Mansfield University, a institution in the Pennsylvania university system.

On September 11, 2001, FBI Special Agent Ali H. Soufan was handed a secret file. Had he received it months earlier, when he had requested it, the 9/11 attacks may have been prevented. From his beginning employment in 1995 through his 2005 departure from the FBI, Soufan interrogated prisoners and elicited some of the most important confessions from terrorists in the war against al-Qaeda. His method of interrogation used conversation only and he never used violence. Soufan provides intimate firsthand knowledge of the investigation into the October 2000 attack on the USN Cole in Yemin. Al-Qaeda hideouts, CIA and FBI interrogation rooms, Guantanemo Bay and al-Qaeda in America are the environments are are revealed either by first hand observations or revealed in interrogations. Usama bin Laden's personal celebration of the 9/11 bombings, the mindset, personal lives of terrorists as well as their thought processes and operate style are each presented. The Black Banners: The Inside Story of 9/11 And The War Against Al-Qaeda essential and compelling reading. Words, phrases and paragraphs within the text have been blackened out by order of the Central Intelligence Agency.

As a government counterterrorism official during and after 9/11 -- who has subsequently taught counterterrorism -- I judge that Soufan has it right. The FBI has been the interrogators for some time and know the techniques that produce results.

The CIA got into the game late and tried to claim credit for FBI successes, using the same techniques for which we convicted Japanese officers of war crimes after WWII. For cover they had memos from Bybee, Yoo, and others that are an embarrassment to the American people.

What we have been seeing is a concerted effort by the advocates of torture to rewrite the record and claim that "EIT" work, led by Jose Rodriguez (who destroyed the interrogation tapes) and others whose reputation is on the line.

The report prepared by the Senate Intelligence Committee over many years, and at a cost of $40 million, should set the record straight. CIA will do its best to black out comments critical of its past actions, but it looks like that will no longer work.

Torture doesn't work, and it did not produce the results the torturers claim. It is also unAmerican.

Ali Soufan, an FBI agent and interrogator, was in Yemen investigating al Qaeda's attack on the USS Cole when the 9/11 attacks took place. Many of his friends and colleagues died in the twin towers, including John O'Neill, his mentor and former boss. The next day, his headquarters ordered him to re-interrogate Fahd al-Quso, a member of al Qaeda in Yemen. They sent him a CIA file explaining why. When Soufan read this file, his hands shook. He ran to the bathroom, fell to the floor next to a toilet, and threw up, unable to comprehend why the CIA had withheld such key intelligence for more than a year. If this intelligence, which the FBI had repeatedly requested, had been shared with the FBI before 9/11, "At a minimum, Khalid al-Mihdhar [one of the hijackers] would not have been allowed to just walk into the United States on July 4, 2001, and Nawaf al-Hazmi, Atta's deputy [another hijacker], would have been arrested." The interrogation of either of these hijackers could have then led to more arrests, and perhaps, foiled the entire plot.

This powerful anecdote is just one of many in Soufan's remarkable memoir, "The Black Banners: The Inside Story of 9/11 and the War Against al-Qaeda." An Arabic-speaking Lebanese American, Soufan served at the "tip of the spear" in America's fight against al Qaeda from 1997 to 2004. During this period, via traditional, non-coercive interrogation techniques, Soufan's team convinced many die-hard al Qaeda members that they should cooperate. After his team questioned L'Houssainne Khertchou, this Kenyan al Qaeda operative became the star witness in a trial that put four other operatives in prison for the 1998 East African embassy bombings. Interrogations of Quso and Jamal al-Badawi led to confessions and convictions for their roles in the 1999 bombing of the USS Cole. His team "turned" Abu Jandal, Usama Bin Laden's personal bodyguard, which led to testimony that convinced Pervez Musharaf, Pakistan's president, that al Qaeda was indeed behind the 9/11 attacks. His interrogations of Abu Zubaydah, a mid-level al Qaeda facilitator, yielded the intelligence that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed had orchestrated these attacks. Notably, during these and other interviews, his team uncovered al Qaeda plots that were then stopped.

As spectacular as these successes are, history will find far more interesting the institutional failures that Soufan's experiences illuminate. There is the failure of the CIA to adequately share intelligence with U.S. law enforcement agencies, thus ensuring the 9/11 attacks could take place. Just as damning is Soufan's eyewitness testimony concerning the utter ineffectiveness of so-called "enhanced" interrogation techniques. Soufan describes multiple interrogations in which he earned the trust and cooperation of al Qaeda operatives, only to have psychologists and amateur interrogators from the CIA destroy this rapport through brutality. Once harsh techniques were used, he reports, detainees stopped providing substantial intelligence. Even more troubling, Soufan describes how the Bush Administration extradited even cooperative sources to Arab countries, where they would be tortured, murdered, or soon released to re-join al Qaeda's ranks.

However, "The Black Banners" is more than a book about American successes and failures; it is the most valuable primary source published to date on al Qaeda. This stands to reason. The terrorist organization was extremely small when Soufan fought it, so he could thus interrogate a sizeable percentage of its members. Via these interviews, we get a detailed, comprehensive view of the group. We learn that what "binds the operatives together is this narrative that convinces them that they're part of a divine plan." This narrative includes cherry-picked, apocryphal sayings of the prophet Mohammed ("hadith"), such as the suspect hadith, "If you see the black banners coming from Khurasan [a medieval kingdom that included much of Afghanistan], join that army, even if you have to crawl over ice; no power will be able to stop it." This alleged saying explains al Qaeda's black flag and the group's interest in Afghanistan. We also discover the degree to which al Qaeda's rank and file are uneducated and, thus, easily manipulated by its leaders. Surprisingly easily, Soufan is able to convince many members to cooperate by simply teaching them the actual words of the Koran--words that contradict much of al Qaeda's propaganda.

"The Black Banners" does have flaws. The CIA reviewed the manuscript, and those sections that cast the CIA in a negative light are heavily redacted. Indeed, some sections are barely readable. The book is also rather haphazardly organized, and its prose, while capable, is unexceptional. Nonetheless, future historians may one day deem this book the most important memoir of our generation. Ali Soufan not only personally exemplifies who Americans are at our best, but he vividly and uniquely describes--to our great shame--whom we have been at our worst. Any American would benefit from reading this book, and it is a must-read for U.S. warfighters, foreign policy makers, historians, and intelligence and law enforcement personnel.

Obviously the average Joe cannot determine one hundred percent whether Soufan or CIA apologists are right about the intelligence failure around 9/11, or the effectiveness of enhanced interrogation techniques, but Soufan certainly lays out a compelling case, from his view point and as an experienced FBI interrogator with an unparalleled track record. We will never know why the CIA refused to share vital information, and in the end, almost held a personal vendetta against Soufan. We are only left to wonder, as Soufan did, what could have been. The book itself, even with the extensive redaction, is a fascinating read, and highly recommended for anyone interested in the intricacies of Islamic terrorism.

This book should not have been published. The blackened text looks more like something off of a Cajun grill or a piece of post-modern art than an actual book that you read. Soufan's voice is unnecessarily defensive, and takes credit for his performance whenever he can. I learned not to trust his voice simply because he seems to do no wrong. Boris, the CIA buffoon who knows nothing about interrogating terrorists, does nothing right. Soufan appoints himself the heroic interrogator. In actuality, this may be accurate, but given the black holes in the text, it is unconvincing.

Interrogation is a game, and whoever redacted this text is playing with us, the readers. Mr. Soufan, either rewrite your story, or take the government to court to get some your story back. But as it is, it was a waste of my hard-earned rupees.

The amazing caliber and sheer volume of intelligence information presented and allegedly obtained first-hand by Mr. Soufan, in conjunction with the unassuming manner in which it's presented, make this a unique read. If I could, I would unfairly have subtracted a half-star for the number of words that have been redacted from this book: clearly, this is due to no fault of the author, and you can even determine for yourself some of the words or passages that have been redacted, and some of the words are "I" and "we", which aren't that hard to determine in context (it's amazing how much work can be put into inconveniencing the general public by attempting to obscure the meaning of a few words), but these redactions make some passages and a few whole chapters mostly unreadable.

There is if course some subjectivity in the author's relation of this data to the reader: the author was directly involved in the interrogations, and at times had to engage in battle with other departments of his own government to obtain valuable information. The author makes clear who those were that presented roadblocks to gleaning this data, but also lauds those with whom he was able to work successfully, at times almost to a fault.

Anyone who was in any way affected by the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York or on other American targets, and who's interested in not only why these attacks were carried out, but also how we were able to determine the motivation and means for the attacks, should start with this book.

As someone who has studied similar events for much of the same time and subject as Ali Soufan, I must say his analysis is first rate. He has a great understanding of the world of Al-Qaeda and the threats it represents not just to the U.S., but to the entire world. I see many of the reviews mention the redactions present in the book, and I have to say, while I find them annoying, I don't think they take away from the overall meaning of what he wanted to get across in the book. They tend to be omissions to keep either important secrets secret or embarrassing tidbits. The first, is none of my business and the second can probably be figured out by conjecture. In either case, there are ways around it. I find that when people leave large, redacted parts in a book, they are trying to cast a conspiratorial air around the book, giving it an added unimportant gravitas. The reader automatically thinks, well what am I missing? The damn government censoring again!

While Mr. Soufan's war stories are actually quite interesting and thrilling in some cases, better than a movie, I would have preferred more on the nature of Al-Qaeda and the threat it presents. The first 40 pages of this book are worth the price of admission because of the fascinating history of the organization and its justifications for its existence. I would like to have seen more of this, since he appears to have been right in the middle of the whole battle. This is why I gave the book three stars instead of four. It is an excellent book, however, covering most of the battle with Al-Qaeda from the first bombing of the World Trade Center, to the Embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya, to the bombing of the USS Cole, to 9/11 and everythign since. This is the battle from the front line, from the law enforcement officials' perspective. It is interesting, it is gripping, but for a scholarly look at Al-Qaeda, a little lacking. Definitely read The Looming Towers as a companion to this book. But do read this book. You will not be disappointed.

This contains an excellent discussion as to whether America should be taking part in the torture of prisoners. It may bother some that the book contains too many details like the various known aliases of various Al Qaeda operatives, but this book can be used by others to further their legitimate interrogation skills.

A follow-up book might be the Dark Side by Jane Mayer. Jane goes into how the torturers took over the Bush administration, probably until Bush figured out that it is the wrong thing to do. Jane's book places a stain on the career of Condoleeza Rice who decided to take sides with Cheney rather than Powell.

Read both books if you want to understand what many from the Bush administration do not want you to know.

I give this book 5 stars despite the numerous redactions in the book because the authenticity of the author can not be questioned. I felt that the book was well researched, well written, and very insightful. I do not blame the authors and the publisher for the "amateurish" redactions that are frequent throughout the book. The redactions DID have a negative impact on the book. Still, I highly recommend this book.

Ali Soufan's book is precious documentation of the reality that America's constitution and (on its better days) open-minded values and respect for the law are excellent tools of self-defense against foreign enemies, tools far more effective than the torture and extra-judicial killings preached and practiced by the neo-cons. Soufan's detailed, dispassionate narrative makes clear that a smart person of good character, armed with the right languages, cultural sensitivity, patience, humor, and appetite for 20-hour days of meticulous preparation, can learn the truth from even the most hardened Islamist ideologues, when black-ops torture and arrogance yield lies, national embarrassment, and blowback against innocent civilians. The CIA's embarrassment comes through vividly in the extensive redactions.
As a former State Department diplomat, I feel Soufan (who worked brilliantly to get into the skulls of al Qaeda terrorists) could have done more to understand Amb. Bodine in Yemen -- she had no way of knowing in advance that the USS Cole investigative team would include some very smart, sensitive FBI people capable of reconciling key Yemeni counterparts to the army of potential jerks arriving with them.
It would be a mistake to believe, as Soufan implies, that the FBI is composed only of people as effective at law enforcement diplomacy as he was. Still, there are enough to get the job done, provided they are backed by a president strong and principled enough (as Bush 43 wasn't and Obama is wavering on) to identify America firmly with the rules of international and domestic law that help potentially dangerous idealists decide whether America's intervention outside its borders is good or evil.

Upon purchasing this book I was looking for a detailed account of AQ activities from it's beginning to present. The first half if the book was very informative which is where the 3 stars I am rating it were earned. The second half turns into largely a finger pointing session as to why the CIA is responsible for slowing down investigations which if according to Soufan was left to the FBI would have ran more efficiently.
This seems like a common theme among intelligence officers and special agents who write books accounting their experiences post 9/11, black banners unfortunately falls into that group

This man deserves America's highest honors. The CIA acted like a bullies in a street gang and the State Department acted in a slightly more professional manner. Ali quits out of frustration and the Dufusses remain in charge. Our only hope is a free press where Ali can bring his story to the few people who are not busy reading about the stars in the tabloids. This book reminds me of when people like the author were common in our country. Now the brightest and best steal and showoff. I hope the book makes you feel as proud and discussed as I feel now.

I read this book about three years ago after seeing Ali Soufan on TV and was greatly impressed. Soufan is a wealth of knowledge and offers an insight into the shadowy world of terrorism and the minds of terrorist. We need more people like him working in intelligence. Great book.

Fascinating read that's unintentionally comedic at times due to the heavy, ineffectual redactions (context usually betrays what's blacked out.) Audio version of this book is likely more palatable for this reason.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The only frustrating thing about the book is that several things are censored with black lines. At certain points whole pages are blacked out. At other points they obviously black out the word 'I'. I'm not sure why they did this as it is obvious that the word is 'I'. As the book goes on more and more of the narrative is blacked out which can lead to confusion. However despite all that it's a really good book and gives you a great insight in the spats between the FBI and the CIA and on the issues of interrogation methods.

I highly recommend this to all those that want more insight into, before and after 9/11. Sometimes it is hard to keep up with each side story and pattern of thought, but overall the story has amazing detail and vivid explanations. Insightful and well worth the time.

Amazing first-hand account of how al-qaeda can be captured and tracked using century-old methods, and how the cia and waterboarding messed up everything.

If you read media coverage with an open mind, you already sort of suspected that influence at the top level of government was not helping, but this is dense, specific and amazing proof.

Yes, the reading is a bit difficult at first because you get lost with so many terrorists names and aliases, but the book is well worth the effort.

On the 10th anniversary of 9/11/2001, the biggest crime regarding the 9/11 attacks, besides those who actually committed the attacks, is that the people in our government whose gross failures, incompetence, and deliberate malfeasance allowed it happen have not been publicly identified, fired from their jobs, and even prosecuted for their crimes.

At the top of that list are some of the people in the CIA:

Not only did the CIA have key information that would have stopped 9/11, they repeatedly denied to the FBI investigators that they had the information and refused to share the information until after it was too late.

Then the CIA, with White House support, forced a very competent and successful interrogator - the author and his team - out while they used a contractor, pseudonym "Boris", to experiment on "high value" detainees with torture techniques that proved to be completely unsuccessful, against American values, and of no value, except to our enemies.

The book has been redacted by the CIA, quite heavily in some places, mainly, IMHO, to cover up their misconduct and to harass the author for writing a book that is critical of them. What is quite telling about the "new and improved" CIA is the foolish and incompetent way the book is redacted, particularly by the CIA's redacting of PRONOUNS. In many cases, it is very obvious that the word redacted is "s/he", "we", "us", "our", "I", "me", or "my". Here is an example from Chapter 20: "[1 word redacted] were fighting to keep alive a terrorist dedicated to killing Americans. But [1 word redacted] needed to get information from him, and he was of no use to [1 word redacted] dead." You don't have to be a cryptology expert to figure out that the missing words are "We", "we", and "us". But the CIA redacted these words anyway.

Also, the CIA apparently can't even redact in a competent manner. In Chapter 23, they made the following redaction: "... CIA Chief [2 words redacted], Matt, ..." on one page. But on the next page, the book says "... Matt, the CIA Chief of base ...". So it's very obvious that the 2 words redacted are "of base", which is not only idiotic to redact in the first place, the CIA couldn't even do it correctly and redact the same "offensive" words a few paragraphs later.

In another case, the CIA redacted the name of a snake. Not a figurative snake; a literal snake. It was obvious from the context of the sentence that it was a snake being referred to, and they even allowed the use of the word "snake" in a subsequent sentence. Perhaps it was a snake that is found only in one country and they wanted to hide the name of the country. Perhaps it was just more CIA shenanigans.

I highly recommend this book. It's very well written (except for the CIA's redactions), and it is a wonderful insight into the good, the bad, and the ugly in our fight against terrorism. It's a shame we don't have more good people like this author working for us.

I heard about this book from watching the PBS Frontline episode "The Interrogator". I highly recommend viewing that, as well as related episodes such as "The Man Who Knew" (about the author's FBI boss John O'Neill who, like the author, was trying hard to protect us and was stymied at every turn by the CIA, the empty suits and political hacks at FBI HQ who ignored all the pre-9/11 warnings, and our Yemen ambassador, Barbara K. Bodine), and "Top Secret America", about the out-of-control explosion of the "security" bureaucracy since 9/11.

While the book has lots of great facts, the author is so full of himself. The extent he goes to undermine the efforts of any fellow agents or CIA who is not from the same part of world is appalling and demeaning to his profession.

This is an amazing book for anyone interested in the events leading up to 9/11 and everything that followed. If you enjoyed any part of The Looming Tower, you will love this one. Some chapters are heavily redacted by the CIA and I cannot wait to read the full version, if and when it becomes available.

I worked with Special Agent Soufan just after 9/11, although I don't have insight into everything in this book, from what I've read it's an accurate summary of events. Also, Soufan was an honorable guy, great to work with.

I heard an interview with the author on the radio show "Fresh Air". This is a fascinating book. The author interrogated the highest ranking Al Qaida members and got critical information from them, including the fact that KSM was the 9/11 mastermind, and the names of several of the 9/11 highjackers, using standard rapport building techniques, not waterboarding. Funny side point- the CIA redacted parts of the book, and there are black lines covering some words. This does not affect the readability or amount of information you can get from the book.

Al Qaeda was organized so that different cells were responsible for different parts of an operation. Often one cell would set up cover businesses in a country, another would conduct surveillance of targets, a third would carry out the attack. Simultaneous attacks showed the strength of the group and American weakness, per al Qaeda.

The Cole attack in Yemen's Aden involved small boats that routinely serviced navy ships, pulling up to and away from them while berthed. Aden had been designated a safe port by higher ups, and the Cole's force protection plan (security teams on deck armed with shotguns) had been approved by higher ups as well. Author Soufan sympathized with the ship's captain, saying it was impossible to distinguish friend from foe standing high up on the deck. (Similar personal experience while assigned guard duty in Vietnam - I had no idea who was friend or foe, and ended up letting everyone on the base. Luckily, no V.C. attacks that day.) Continuing, Soufan also reports squabbling beteen U.S. State Dept. officials (over number of Americans admitted for the investigation), and with Yemini officials over turf. The U.S. never retaliated against al Qaeda for that attacks, and at least some of the arrested suspects were later released by Yemini officials.

The 9/9/01 assassination of the Northern Alliance's Massoud was seen by the author as a ploy to strengthen Taliban support for something huge - presumably the next day's 9/11 attack. The FBI was not told by the CIA that Khalid al Mihdhar, one of the 9/11 hijackers, was in the U.S. until 8/23/2011. Soufan contends that had they done so, the dots might have been connected in time to prevent the attack - however, he offers no credible evidence that this would have happened.

"The Black Banners" also details low-level fighting between the CIA, FBI, contractors, and DOD - in my opinion, this is indicative of too many cooks, and general overstaffing. The book's accounting of how the U.S. found bin Laden is vague and worthless - probably for security reasons. Soufan also want readers to know that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the 9/11 mastermind, still lied about the identify of bin Laden's courier after being waterboarded 183 times - they got to bin Laden via traditional investigation.