CATEGORY

While the Middle East receives much scrutiny as the home of extremist Muslim terrorists, Maria Ressa offers a closer look at Southeast Asia as a hotspot where Al-Qaeda forces and other organizations are continually growing larger and more powerful. Ressa, the CNN bureau chief in Jakarta, has been based in the region for most of her career and provides a highly unsettling inside perspective to the people and events of that region. Islamist terrorist networks are, by nature, shadowy and complex, especially to Westerners who might have difficulty understanding the cultures from which they spring, but Ressa adroitly explains the various people and factions in ways that are highly compelling and deeply disturbing. Although Osama bin Laden, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, and other Middle Eastern Al-Qaeda figures are featured here, Ressa also recalls personal interviews she conducted with Abu Bakar Ba'Asyir, the so-called "Asian Osama bin Laden," who denies any connection with terrorist organizations and acts despite voluminous evidence to the contrary. And personal experiences such as that are what make Seeds of Terror such an engrossing work of non-fiction. Tensions are consistently high in the region, especially for a western woman trying to learn the truth about what various groups are up to, and one comes to admire Ressa's persistence in trying to get the story even while repeatedly putting herself in mortal danger. Highlights included an explanation of how a failed Al-Qaeda plot in Singapore gave way to a successful attack in Bali, the career trajectory of an Al-Qaeda operative whose training begins in adolescence, and a look at the very real threat of ninja attacks. There are numerous books that provide investigations of terrorist networks but Ressa's unique point of view combined with how relatively under-publicized the Southeast Asian terrorist threat has been make this a must-read for anyone trying to understand how terrorism grows and spreads. --John Moe