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Hardcover Relentless Pursuit: The DSS and the Manhunt for the Al-Qaeda Terrorists Book

ISBN: 0765304023

ISBN13: 9780765304025

Relentless Pursuit: The DSS and the Manhunt for the Al-Qaeda Terrorists

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Book Overview

Al Queda's war on America did not start on September 11, 2001. Just ask the Diplomatic Security Service. It was on February 6, 1993, that the United States was first attacked on its own soil by foreign terrorists. A zealous band of Middle Easterners, holy warriors determined to punish the U.S. for its supposed transgressions against Islam, packed over a ton of home made explosives into the back of a rented van. They drove their bomb across the Hudson from New Jersey, maneuvered it through downtown traffic and parked it in the underground garage at the Vista Hotel, beneath the twin towers of the World Trade Center. They lit a long fuse, which allowed them time to get back to New Jersey to watch the results of the explosion on CNN. They hoped to topple one mammoth tower into the other and kill ten thousand people or more. Miraculously, only six people were killed. Most of the group were captured within a week, but the mastermind behind the attack, Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, had immediately gone to JFK airport to fly to Pakistan. Before leaving, he phoned the Associated Press and claimed responsibility for the bombing in the name of the Arab Liberation Army, a terrorist group led by Saudi exile Osama bin Laden. A succession of such brazen crimes has revealed complex connections among terrorist groups with an implacable hostility toward Western civilization. Outrages such as the assassination of the Jewish Defense League founder Meier Kahane, a huge plot in the Philippines to plant bombs on intercontinental airlines and to assassinate the Pope, the bombing of U.S. embassies, culminating in the African embassy bombings of 1998, the attack on the USS Cole in 1999, and the devastating attack on the World Trade Center in 2001 have made it clear that a worldwide network of terrorists led by Osama bin Laden is making war on the United States. On the front lines combating these terrorists in 150 countries around the world have been the 1,200 agents of the U.S. Department of State's Diplomatic Security Service. A little-known but highly effective branch of the government, the DSS is the one arm of federal law enforcement with international powers of arrest. These agents maintain close ties to local police commanders in many countries and can entice informants with bounties of up to $4,000,000. After a challenging international search, it was DSS agents in Pakistan who captured Ramzi Yousef. DSS agents have been in the vanguard of the War on Terrorism long before it was declared. In "Relentless Pursuit," Samuel Katz review the escalating series of terrorist attacks on the U.S. during the last decade, including those in many foreign countries and finally in New York and Washington. In the process, he tells the gripping story of the DSS and its agents protecting us and our representatives here and abroad. Katz's detailed, personal, on-the-ground anecdotes bring home the contexts and linkages of the War on Terrorism that has been fought on our behalf by the DSS since the 1980s. Relentless Pursuit is a stirring tribute to an unsung group of brave Americans.

Customer Reviews

5 ratings

A Classic True Account of America's Global Heroes

This is the first book to truly talk of the efforts of DSS, the State Department's little known yet all-important law enforcement entity. While other books about America's war against terrorism have focused on the shortcomings of the CIA and FBI in stopping al-Qaeda in its tracks, this book focuses on America's first true victory in this bloody struggle--the capture of World Trade Center bombing mastermind Ramzi Yousef--and how the handwriting for attacks such as 9/11 had been on the wall for years.Other accounts might pick and steal from this book's true stories of the federal agents who serve this nation in some of the most distant global outposts in the world, but Katz's amazing book remains an original and an American classic.

The inside story on the search for the terrorists...

This book profiles the inside story of the Diplomatic Security Service (DSS) and their search for the Al-Qaeda criminals. Primarily, the book details the quest to bring these terrorists to justice that occurred before the events of September 11. While most of America did not wake up to the threats these people posed until 9/11, the DSS has been aware of the potential dangers for many years, and has spent that time trying to capture them and protect US diplomats from falling victim to their acts. This book is highly recommended as it presents the inside story of a law enforcement organization that is little known and because it shows the lengths to which we will go to destroy this terrorist organization.

DSS - America's Finest

I picked this book after seeing the back cover and a photo of a DSS agent in tactical gear firing an M4--not knowing who or what DSS was, I thought that this was interesting and starting thumbing through the pages of the book. The text was fascinating. The author, in a fast-paced provocative narrative, provides a blueprint for how terrorists have been plotting against the US for over a decade, and how much of the grueling work to bring them to justice has fallen upon the shoulders of DSS--the Diplomatic Security Service (although other agencies, most notably the FBI, has often taken the credit). This book is a long overdue testament to the Diplomatic Security Service and the fine work they do. A great read.

Brilliant

What makes this book so unique is the fact that it was a work in progress long before 9-11. It appears as if the author had been writing the story of the one federal law enforcement agency to take al-Qaeda seriously for years before the horrific attacks of September 11. The book is not a finger-pointing I told you so look at 9-11, but rather a beautifully-constructed profile of the Diplomatic Security Service and its global war against terrorists. The DSS are heroes--and it is about time people learned about what they did. I hope that the author is working on a sequel. I'll bet, after reading this book, that DSS, will be in the forefront of bringing bin Laden and his lieutenants to justice.

A True-Life Thriller About Unsung Heroes

Samuel Katz is already well-known by those of us who admire his depth and detail, but this book tops anything else out there about the war against terror and the people who really wage it. "Relentless Pursuit" is not only timely, but courageous, taking readers into the world of the Diplomatic Secuirity Service, a law enforcement arm of the federal government that deserves much more recognition than it gets. Long before the average American had ever heard of Al-Qaeda, DSS agents were waging a determined campaign in the far reachess of Pakistan, searching for the perpetrators of the first attack on the World Trade Center. Katz takes us right down into this gritty and dangerous world, making his book a true-life thriller about unsung and anonymous heroes. You can forget about all those "terrorism experts" popping up on your TV. Katz - and this book - are the real thing.
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