01878cam a2200301 4500 121318584 TxAuBib 20071024120000.0 060227s2006||||||||||||||||||||||||eng|u 2006041032 9780375414862 037541486X DLC DLC BAKER GK8 C#P CoLwJCPL TxAuBib Wright, Lawrence, 1947- The looming tower [HC] : Al-Qaeda and the road to 9/11 / Lawrence Wright. Al-Qaeda and the road to 9/11. 1st ed. New York : Knopf, 2006. 469 p., [16] p. of plates : ill., maps ; 25 cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. 429-438) and index. Wright tells the story of the interweaving lives of four men: the two leaders of al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri; the FBI's counterterrorism chief, John O'Neill; and the former head of Saudi intelligence, Prince Turki al-Faisal. As these lives unfold, we see revealed: the crosscurrents of modern Islam that helped to radicalize Zawahiri and bin Laden, the birth of al-Qaeda and its unsteady development into an organization capable of the American embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania and the attack on the USS Cole, O'Neill's heroic efforts to track al-Qaeda before 9/11, and his tragic death in the World Trade towers, Prince Turki's transformation from bin Laden's ally to his enemy, the failures of the FBI, CIA, and NSA to share intelligence that might have prevented the 9/11 attacks. 20071024. Qaida (Organization.) September 11 Terrorist Attacks, 2001. Terrorism Government policy United States. Intelligence service United States. Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction.