Intellectual Leaders of Al Qaeda Disavow Violence

A few important must-reads, though lengthy, pieces about some remarkable dissent within Al Qaeda. It makes for fascinating reading. I couldn't put down Wright's piece. I've not yet read Bergen and Cruickshank.

One in The New Yorker by the estimable Lawrence Wright The Rebellion Within . Wright is the author of the Pulitizer prize winning book, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 and which was made into a one man play last year called My Trip to Al-Qaeda. A great NPR interview on the play can be heard here.

Second piece on the exact same topic, this week as well (how do these things happen?) - in The New Republic called The Unraveling by Peter Bergen and Paul Cruickshank.

And an hour long interview on the Diane Rehm show on dissent within Al Qaeda with (the first guest, is very interesting)

• Michael Scheuer, former CIA analyst who headed the agency's Osama Bin Laden unit from 1996 to 1999; author of the new book "Marching Toward Hell: America and Islam After Iraq"
• Fawaz Gerges, professor of Middle East and international affairs at Sarah Lawrence College; author of "Journey of the Jihadist: Inside Muslim Militancy"
• Peter Bergen, CNN national security analyst, Schwartz senior fellow at the New America Foundation; research fellow at New York University's Center on Law and Security; author of "The Osama bin Laden I Know: An Oral History of al Qaeda's Leader"
• Jarret Brachman, director of research, Combating Terrorism Center at the U.S. Military Academy (West Point)

I will annotate after I finish reading this weekend