The Jihad Next Door (1 of 3 free samples)

---

COPYRIGHT
The Jihad Next Door by Dina Temple-Raston. Copyright 2007 by Dina Temple-Raston.
All Rights Reserved. Sharing not permitted.

---

Next

THE JIHAD NEXT DOOR
The Lackawanna Six and Rough Justice in the Age of Terror

Dina Temple-Raston

To the good people of Lackawanna's First Ward


You are not wood, you are not stones, but men;
And, being men, bearing the will of Caesar,
It will inflame you, it will make you mad.

--William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Act III, Scene 2


AUTHOR'S NOTE
http://www.dailylit.com/books/jihad-next-door/author


PROLOGUE

MUKHTAR'S BIG WEDDING

September 2002

LIFE CHANGED FOR Mukhtar al-Bakri and five of his friends on an otherwise beautiful crisp September day. He could remember the precise moment when he stepped into the gloom: It started with his hotel room door crashing open. September 9, 2002, was supposed to be the most important day of twenty-one-year-old Mukhtar al-Bakri's short life. His wedding to the teenage daughter of a family friend in Bahrain had been an elaborate affair, something beyond what the al-Bakri family could really afford. His arrival at the wedding hall was greeted by the beating of drums and a cacophony of traditional instruments. The sisters of his bride playfully welcomed each guest with a gentle tap, a sort of blessing, from a stick wrapped in flowers. Attendants donned flowing white gowns and long Arabian headscarves. The bride wore a modest white veil. Waiters lurched under the weight of plates piled high with food. There were dutiful prayers to Allah. It was everything Mukhtar al-Bakri had envisioned.
The proceedings were dignified yet oddly fun. It marked a fresh start for him: a new, better phase of his life.

Mukhtar's friends had been surprised, even perplexed, at how seriously he was taking his newfound responsibility. The wedding kindled extraordinary emotions and hopes within him. Frankly, it wasn't like Mukhtar; he was generally carefree and hardly one to suddenly reorder his life. That might explain why they were alarmed when Mukhtar called one of them before the wedding to say goodbye. "You won't be hearing from me again," Mukhtar said over the crackling of a long-distance connection. Why he sounded so fatalistic just before what should have been a joyous occasion is unclear. Maybe, like many people his age, he was being overly dramatic, as one phase of his life closed and another began. He said later he just meant it as a joke, that he was going to drop out of sight for a while and try his hand at being a dutiful husband instead of a hard partying twenty-something. To his friends, the message sounded ominous.

When they started calling each other recounting Mukhtar's message, an entirely different audience was also listening. To the ears of the FBI investigators tracking the call, the talk of a big wedding indicated not a blow-out party in Bahrain but something else entirely. What they thought they heard, all too clearly, was the signature farewell of a suicide bomber--the dialogue of a young man about to meet his maker. As the first anniversary of the September 11 attacks drew closer, America was on high alert. It appeared her enemies--Islamic fundamentalists bent on destruction--were gearing up for something. Mukhtar's phone call fit neatly into a perceived pattern of events. The FBI had worked up a list of potential targets in the days leading up to the anniversary. Attacks on military bases in the Middle East were at the top of the list, and Mukhtar's phone call seemed like a break, a clue amid an ocean of information pouring into the American intelligence community.
The military went on Delta Alert--its highest state of readiness--shortly after the intercept. The young man from Lackawanna who was determined to reorder his life had no idea what his talk about a "big wedding" had set in motion.

#

Next