The Next Front
Southeast Asia and the Road to Global Peace with Islam
Chapter One
The Doctor
The morning after the aerial attacks on the World Trade Center
and the Pentagon, September 12, 2001, Americans awoke
to the realization that al-Qaeda was a worldwide organization. In
addition to its core Arab fighters and funders in the Middle East,
Afghanistan, and Pakistan, other operatives lived, worked, and were
winning favor among the Muslims of Southeast Asia. Al-Qaeda's
contacts and contractors in the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand,
Indonesia, and Singapore, it developed, were numerous.
There was the Pakistani Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, whom the
9/11 Commission called "the principal architect" of the 2001 attacks.
He had operated out of Manila in 1994, planning other attacks and
recruiting for al-Qaeda.
Then there was Khalid's nephew Ramzi Yousef. After successfully
blasting a six-story-deep crater in the foundation of the World
Trade Center on February 26, 1993, he shifted his base of operations
to Manila and b ... read full excerpt from The Next Front: Southeast Asia and the Road to Global Peace with Islam ebook
