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Path of Blood

The Story of Al Qaeda's War on Saudi Arabia

By Thomas Small and Jonathan Hacker

About The Book
Path of Bloodtells the gripping and horrifying true story of the underground army which Osama Bin Laden created in order to attack his number one target: his home country, Saudi Arabia. His aim was to conquer the land of the Two Holy Mosques, the land from where Islam had first originated and, from there, to re-establish a Muslim Empire that could take on the West and win.

With the West unpopular with many Saudis at the time of the Iraq and Afghan wars, the Al Qaeda leadership lured impressionable recruits to the organisation with a mix of religious and political rhetoric as well as the promise of glory and heavenly riches. Many joined, and a murderous and highly visible campaign of kidnapping, shootings and bombings was launched across the country.

And yet, a far cry from the image they promoted of themselves as single-minded guerrilla tacticians, authors Jonathan Small and Thomas Hacker's new insider evidence reveals the Al Qaeda infighting, the fooling around, and the training sessions which sometimes descended into farce. Yet the threat they posed was unquestionable. Ill-disciplined or not, these were men who killed with impunity, and who tried to acquire a nuclear bomb.

Drawing on unprecedented access to Saudi government archives, interviews with top intelligence officials both in the Middle East and in the West, as well as with captured Al Qaeda militants, and with access to exclusive captured video footage from Al Qaeda cells, Path of Bloodtells the full story of the terrorist campaign and the desperate and determined attempt by Saudi Arabia's internal security services to put a stop to it.

About The Authors
Thomas Small

Originally from California, Thomas Small caught the travel bug early on and spent several years travelling the Middle East and the Eastern Mediterranean. He is fluent in Arabic, with a first-class degree in Arabic & Islamic Studies from SOAS, and lived in Damascus for a year. He lives in London where he now works as a film producer and copywriter. He is Associate Producer of the documentary. This is his first book. Jonathan Hacker is the director and producer of the film PATH OF BLOOD. He read Modern History at Oxford University and then studied at USC film school in Los Angeles. He has directed a wide range of documentaries including the feature length 'Britain's First Suicide Bombers' for BBC2 on Islamic radicalism. He has received over fifteen international awards including the prestigious BAFTA and RTS. He is also author of Take Ten: Contemporary British Film Directors (OUP).

Jonathan Hacker

Originally from California, Thomas Small caught the travel bug early on and spent several years travelling the Middle East and the Eastern Mediterranean. He is fluent in Arabic, with a first-class degree in Arabic & Islamic Studies from SOAS, and lived in Damascus for a year. He lives in London where he now works as a film producer and copywriter. He is Associate Producer of the documentary. This is his first book. Jonathan Hacker is the director and producer of the film PATH OF BLOOD. He read Modern History at Oxford University and then studied at USC film school in Los Angeles. He has directed a wide range of documentaries including the feature length 'Britain's First Suicide Bombers' for BBC2 on Islamic radicalism. He has received over fifteen international awards including the prestigious BAFTA and RTS. He is also author of Take Ten: Contemporary British Film Directors (OUP).

Product Details
  • Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK (September 1, 2014)
  • Length: 480 pages
  • ISBN13: 9781471135736

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Path of Blood

The Story of Al Qaeda's War on Saudi Arabia

By Thomas Small and Jonathan Hacker