I am currently reading Chechen Jihad by Yossef Bodansky. Like his previous book, The Secret History of the Iraq War, Chechen Jihad is filled with a tremendous amount of detailed information, and it makes me wonder how he could aquire the same. I've read about 1/3 of the book which so far provides some incredible insight into the methodology used by the Islamist Jihaddists to win over geographic regions and prosecute their attacks against their enemies.
If any other board members have read any books by Mr. Bodansky, I would be interested to get their feedback.
In the previous post I mentioned the amazing amount of detail the author provides related to subjects that would seem to be unattainable unless one was privy to intelligence created at the highest level. As an example, I have laboriously included an excerpt from the book. This text starts on page 1157. Any spelling errors or discontinuities are of my own creation.
The Chechens’ bond with the supreme Islamist-Jihadist leadership was bolstered during these turbulent months after a surprising turn of events: a sudden downturn in Osama bin Laden’s health.
Early in that winter of 1999-2000, bin Laden’s health collapsed. His kidneys gave him debilitating pain, which evolved into bouts of depression. By January 2000, his overall situation had deteriorated so fully that his closest confidants feared that he might become permanently disabled or even die. Arab doctors were rushed to Qandahar from the Persian Gulf, but the complex treatment they prescribed could not be performed in either Afghanistan or even Pakistan. Faced with this crisis, Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri-- once among Egypt’s leading pediatricians-- resigned from the leadership of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad to devote himself full-time to the bin Laden organization, and to Osama bin Laden’s health.
In January, Zawahiri arranged for an Iraqi doctor to examine bin Laden in Afghanistan. The Iraqi doctor prescribed a treatment involving dialysis, a series of shots, and intravenous infusions, as well as an assortment of rare medications. A thorough search of Afghanistan led to the discovery of a Soviet dialysis machine and related equipment in the basement of a now destroyed Kabul hospital originally built for former president Mohammad Najibullah and the Afghani governmental elite. Zawahiri then called on his longtime connections with the Chechen Mafiya, which dated back to the early 1990’s and were cemented by his late 1996 – early 1997 clandestine visit to Chechnya and Dagestan, to find and quickly deliver the spare parts for the Soviet dialysis machine and other medical equipment the Iraqi doctor required. ……When the Iraqi doctor returned to Afghanistan in early February, bin Laden was moved to his forward headquarters near Sarobi, Laghman province(between Kabul and Jalalabad), where the medical equipment was installed.
Led by the Iraqi doctor and Zawahiri, the medical team treated bin Laden for more than a month. …..By late February, he(bin Laden) was strong enough to attend brief meetings with guests in the Jalalabad area…..in late March he managed to make a rare public appearance, attending a high-level meeting with the Taliban leadership in Laghman province to discuss President Clinton’s upcoming visit to Pakistan.
Maybe the above information is common knowlege, but it seems very detailed and amazing. Again, the only out of balance may be my perspective.