This book provides the historical and political context to explain acts of terror, including the September 11th, and the bombing of American Embassies in Nairobi and Dar as Salaam and the West's responses. Providing a brief history of Islam as a religion and as socio-political ideology, Dilip Hiro goes on to outline the Islamist movements that have thrived in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan, and their changing relationship with America. It is within this framework that the rising menace of Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaida network is discussed.

The Pentagon's amazingly swift victory over the Taliban in Afghanistan is examined along with implications of the Bush Doctrine, encapsulated in his declaration, 'so long as anybody is terrorizing established governments, there needs to be a war' - a recipe for war without end.