The Jihad Next Door: The Lackawanna Six and Rough Justice in an Age of Terror

Dina Temple-Raston

PublicAffairs, Dec 7, 2007 - History - 336 pages

They called themselves the Arabian Knights. They were six Yemeni-American friends, a gang of high-school soccer stars, a band of brothers on the grim side streets of Lackawanna's First Ward, just a stone's throw from Buffalo.

Later, people would argue about why they left western New York in the spring of 2001 to attend an al-Qaeda camp. Some said they traveled to Afghanistan to become America's first sleeper cell—terrorists slumbering while they awaited orders from on high. Others said that their ill-fated trip was a lark, an adventurous extension of their youthful wrestling with what it meant to be Muslim in America.

Dina Temple-Raston returns to Lackawanna to tell the story of a group of young men—born and brought up in small town America—who left otherwise unremarkable lives to attend an al-Qaeda camp. Though they sought to quietly slip back into their roles as middle class Americans, the 9/11 attacks made that impossible.

The Jihad Next Door is the story of pre-emptive justice in the age of terror. It follows a handful of ordinary men through an extraordinary time when Muslims in America are often instantly suspect, their actions often viewed through the most sinister lens.

What people are saying

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - Pmaurer - LibraryThing

Mystery regarding a woman, accused of abducting her son and hiding him from the husbands powerful family. Corporate secrets are stolen, another woman murdered in place of the heroine, big bucks at stake. Lots of interesting details to sort thro by Barbara Holloway and her father.

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - kysmom02 - LibraryThing

Great ending!! For the most part, this book flowed well. The beginning wasn't as page-turning as the middle and end, but it had enough of the plot set up that when things began to happen to Barbara ...

Contents

• Mukhtars Big Wedding: 1
• The Curse of McKinley: 11
• Ward Rats: 21
• The Search for Clarity: 33
• God Rewards Those Who Fight: 47
• Of Mullahs and Madrassas: 65
• The Closer: 81
• Take Your Souls in Your Hands: 95
• Sitting Down with the Sheikh: 113
• For Muslims in This Country It is Over: 127
• On the Hot Seat: 141
• Fitting Profiles: 159
• A Conspiracy of Silence: 175
• A Time of Fire: 195
• Ideological Detonators: 211
• Bills Fans or Jihadists?: 243
• Banging the Drums of War: 251
• Notes on Sources: 255
• Acknowledgments: 271
• Index: 275

Popular passages

Page vii - Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind.‎

Page 128 - Islamist military organization: knowledge of Islam, ideological commitment, maturity, self-sacrifice, discipline, secrecy and concealment of information, good health, patience, unflappability, intelligence and insight, caution and prudence, truthfulness and wisdom, the ability to observe and analyze, and the ability to act.‎

Page vii - And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so. How do I know? For this is what I have done. And I am Caesar.‎

Page 256 - Going to the Source: Why Al Qaeda's Financial Network Is Likely to Withstand the Current War on Terrorist Financing...‎

Page 83 - John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and the Air Force Special Operations School at Hurlburt Field, Florida.‎

Page 58 - All the nationalistic and chauvinistic ideologies that have appeared in modern times, and all the movements and theories derived from them, have also lost their vitality In short, all man-made theories, both individualistic and collectivist, have proved to be failures. At this crucial and bewildering juncture, the turn of Islam and the Muslim community has arrived because it has the needed values.‎

Page 187 - As for the effects of these operations on the enemy, we have found, through the course of our experience, that there is no other technique which strikes as much terror into their hearts, and which shatters their spirit as much. On account of this they refrain from mixing with the population and from oppressing, harassing and looting them.‎

Page 260 - The New York Times, June 15, 2006. Golden, Tim, and Don Van Natta, Jr. "US Said to Overstate Value of Guantanamo Detainees," The New York Times, June 21, 2004.‎

Page 179 - He had been an Assistant United States Attorney for the Western District of New York and...‎

Page 59 - According to Islamic law, it is lawful to wage war against four types of enemies: infidels, apostates, rebels, and bandits. In the terminology of jihad, brothers were meant to defeat the "near enemy" — the secularists in Muslim society — and then move on to the "distant enemy,‎

About the author

Dina Temple-Raston is the FBI correspondent for National Public Radio and the award-winning author of several books, including A Death in Texas, Justice in the Grass and In Defense of Our America. She lives in New York City.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Jihad Next Door: The Lackawanna Six and Rough Justice in an Age of Terror
• Author: Dina Temple-Raston
• Publisher: PublicAffairs, 2007
• ISBN: 158648625X, 9781586486259
• Length: 336 pages
• Subjects: History / Middle East / General