The Base : In Search of Al-Qaeda, the Terror Network That Shook the World

The late 1990s saw a number of attacks against American military and government offices, most notably the US Embassy bombings in Africa in 1998. On 11 September 2001, however, the scale of this conflict changed dramatically. The kidnapping of four commercial airliners led to the deaths of some 3,000 people. As in 1998, the terrorist group responsible for this devastating campaign was Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda, or "The Base", a loose network of extremists, many of whom are willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for their cause. Jane Corbin has studied Bin Laden's organization for four years and has followed in his footsteps through the Middle East, Africa, Europe and America. She has conducted hundreds of interviews with key eyewitnesses, investigators and intelligence officers around the world. Tracing al-Qaeda's roots back to the jihad against the Soviets in Afghanistan, Corbin picks up the complicated trail that led to the collapse of the Twin Towers and beyond. And as President Bush's "war on terror" in Afghanistan poses more questions than it answers, Corbin examine's the West's response to the threat of al-Qaeda and declares it a failure. "The Base" should be essential reading for anyone interested in the history and likely further operation of arguably the biggest threat to democracy since the Cold War.

Jane Corbin is a senior foreign correspondent for the BBC's flagship current-affairs programme, PANORAMA. She had been researching Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network since the US Embassy attacks in 1998, and wrote and produced the first profile of Bin Laden to be shown on British television in the aftermath of the September 11 atrocities. She lives in London and Chipping Norton.