Lightning Out of Lebanon

"Lightning Out of Lebanon", written by Tom Diaz and Barbara Newman, is an "essential addition to our understanding" of the current terrorist threats to America. This is a brilliant account of how an FBI agent, Rick Schwein, captured a Hezbollah terrorist operating in Charlotte, North Carolina in 2002.

The authors remind us that "Hezbollah held the record for terrorist murders of Americans before al Qaeda seized that grisly distinction with the catastrophic events of September 11, 2001" and they point out that "a successful terrorist plot can be woven of many threads, some of which appear in isolation to be innocent, or at worst, merely petty crime."

They document how Ismalal Ascari an Iranian member of Hezbollah organization was the suicide bomber that leveled the US Marine Barracks in Beirut on October 23, 1983 and Hezbollah operatives in Saudi Arabia are responsible for bombing the American barracks at Khobar Towers in 1996 killing 19 Americans and wounding 515 others.

The authors give a chilling warning that Hezbollah will "simply adjust their tactics to the realities of the moment without changing their ultimate goals - eradicate the Little Satan of Israel, expel the great Satan of the United States" and they finally remind us that "Al Qaeda did not send stealth bombers to the United States. It sent fanatical men willing to die."

"Lightning Out of Lebanon" is a must-read for your understanding of the War on Terrorism and our responsibilities in fighting it.

Lightning Out of Lebanon, Hezbollah Terrorist on American Soil
Tom Diaz & Barbara Newman
ISBN 0-345-47568-2

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