I Was Told to Come Alone: My Journey Behind the Lines of Jihad

Simply a must read. Souad Mekhennet's tenacity, skill, upbringing, and cultural deftness combine to allow her to tell a more nuanced story of how terrorism has evolved since 9/11 than about anything else out there. But even more importantly, she does so by freshly illuminating her own path as a journalist and evolving identity as a Muslim in the West with openness, kindness, humor, and candor that makes her story so compelling. A genuinely human and evocative portrayal of problems some want to keep so foreign, but in fact can only be solved when we get close and understand. Guaranteed to make you think differently about the world.

I couldn't put this book down. The author grabs you with a fascinating narrative of very personal interactions with some of the most wanted men in the war on terror. Her very unique perspective as a Western Muslim woman with unprecedented access to Jihadist -from Taliban to Al-Qaeda and ISIS, who manages to keep an uncommon balanced view, and gives the reader serious insight into the depths of the most dangerous and sought after terrorist cells. The book will bring you down to the human elements that have been lost over so many years of terror, and more than once will make you wonder why? Who is to blame? And it will shed light into the question of how we got here today. It will make you reflect on the consequences of the Iraq war and its aftermath, and what it have done to the balance of power in the Middle East, and how it contributed to fuel extremism and hatred against the West, creating a world where nobody wins. A must read.

This engrossing memoir reads like a thriller. I just kept turning the pages and devouring it, and finally, I didn't start a new chapter until I had time to finish it, because I found myself putting off urgent tasks. I finally finished it on a long international flight. It is the fascinating journey of a young journalist who covers Islamic terrorists and tries to decode why they are targeting Europe and coalescing into the brutally repressive caliphate of ISIS. It begins with her genesis as the daughter of immigrants from Turkey and Morocco, and how she came of age facing some of the rejection and racism that would be cited by her subjects among the reasons why they became terrorists. As she jumps on planes and travels around the world, you will gain many insights into the events behind the headlines of terrorist attacks in Belgium, Paris, and other places. She recounts her conversations with members of terror cells, argues with them about their justifications for killing innocent people, and at times puts up with their proposals that she become their second or third wife, or in one memorable scene, listens to them propose beheading her American journalist colleague. In the end the violence hits close to home. The story is told in a simple, conversational style that doesn't get in the way of the amazing reporting adventures she is recounting. This should be read by foreign policy wonks, by adolescents and young adults, by specialists in terrorism, and by government officials who are involved in coping with the huge wave of immigrants from the Middle East, Africa and Asia. There is so much to learn from this book. It should be required reading at all journalism schools, so students can learn from her methodology and her decision-making in reporting on fast-moving events.

I am currently in the 3rd chapter of this book. WHAT A COURAGEOUS young woman, Souad Mekhennet is. She is blessed with a solid family who have given her much more than love, especially her grandmother (maternal?) who provided life-saving insights and skills. But I'm almost as impressed with her compelling curiosity as any of her character traits thus far. Luckily, she is also blessed with a healthy portion of intelligence, allowing her to learn quickly and make adjustments as necessary. Along with her grandmother's training, I'm sure that's what keeps her safe and alive.The book is alive with information on middle east thinking at the proletariat level and offers the perspectives of average and militants as well as how the behavior of some effects the thinking of many. I'm reading that she has currently just entering Iraq with a westerner in the back seat. To be continued...

Souad Mekhennet’s memoir of working to uncover and understand the agendas of global jihadists is one of the most important books of our time. Her tenacity and resolve to follow the story where it leads rather than map the narrative and then supply the evidence she prefers illustrates why the world continues to need trained and dedicated journalists. Mekhennet’s deep knowledge, both experiential and academic, as well as her insistence on treating all sources and ideas fairly (and challenging them all, too!) allows her to operate in an almost hallowed space - able to access high level jihadi contacts while reporting for several of the world’s most influential Western publications.I have deep respect for the work Mekhennet does and for her perseverance as well. I would also be remiss not to point out that she crafts a story here that is almost impossible to resist: there are sections that Read like a an action thriller, and other portions that share deep grief and make plain t a myriad of sufferings.Anyone interested in “why they hate us”, whatever “they” you wonder about, look here. There are nuanced, honest, and important answers to be found and a barrage of insights to be illuminated.My only regret is that I didn’t know this book existed until the other day. It deserves the world’s attention and certainly grabbed my own and wouldn’t let go.

Souad Mehennet is a Muslim woman of Moroccan / Turkish descent, born and raised in Germany. Her mother was part of the Shia community, her father part of the Sunni community. Souad was inspired to become a journalist by watching the film, 'All the President's Men'. This dramatised the power that journalists had in real life to uncover deception at the highest level and instigate change by revealing the truth. Souad spent time with her grandparents in Morocco. Her grandfather was illiterate and he impressed on Souad the importance of literacy - telling her that, 'the people with power write history'.'I Was Told To Come Alone' is a book of great value. Souad is concerned with the truth and does not believe that a reporter should take sides. As a Muslim and Arabic speaker she is able to interview prominent Muslim leaders - often placing herself in a vulnerable position in order to do this. She is concerned with accurate reporting and understanding diverse views. She distinguishes between people like herself, who want to build bridges and those who would rather see the world in polarities - thereby spreading hatred and division.She sees the danger of people in Western Countries setting standards for others as if their way was the only way. Democracy is not a great system if it means that the majority can ignore the needs of minorities within their society. Souad believes that the way forward is to promote the values that we hold dear; the equality of men and women, the rights of minorities to survive and thrive and the freedom to speak our minds and practice whatever faith we choose. She states that 'religion does not radically people; people radicalise religion'. She also believes that, 'a dialogue is overdue within Islam and within Muslim societies about what can and cannot be justified by their faith'.

This gripping series of investigations across the Middle East is dramatic and authentic. It is based on 13 years of intense encounter with Jihadists and their supporters, by a Muslim woman who is poised uneasily between worlds, working mostly for the principled Washington Post. The strength of Mekhennet’s personal but neutral engagement – she seeks, via face to face interviews, to learn why and how various individuals became Jihadists - gives great authority to her narrative-style reportage.Though she is profoundly opposed to Jihadist murders and aims, Mekhennet writes with a sensitive German-Muslim insider’s feeling for what it is like to be an unwanted and alienated immigrant. She is further conflicted because her father is a Turkish Sunni and her mother a Moroccan Shia – and because she is a woman working in the male-dominated world of Western journalism, writing about Jihadist men who believe they are carrying out God’s will.Mekhennet set off on this investigative journalist’s path because she took deeply to heart the cry from the mother of a murdered American who wanted to know, ‘why do they hate us?’ The whole book is essentially an enveloping answer to this question, taking us through hair-raising meetings with ISIS, al-Qaeda and other Islamists (plus the Egyptian and other security services) across Iraq, Algeria, Lebanon, Jordan, Pakistan, Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain, Germany, France and Belgium, during 2003-2016. Along the way Mekhennet establishes an uneasy but enduring set of professional relationships with figures on the edge of the Islamist world, as well as a number of direct participants and some who direct and control the killers.But what really sets this remarkable testimony apart is the personal history and integrity of the author herself, who gives a vivid picture of where and how she was brought up, in order, I think, to give full disclosure of just where she is coming from and how she is motivated. Mekhennet’s indomitable, demanding Moroccan grand-mother stands out as her guiding lodestar, though she only knew her as a small child when she was sent to live with her grandmother for a few years in a poor part of Moroccan city.The book reads like a thriller, especially in the first half, as the journalist (who idolised Woodward and Bernstein, after seeing All the President’s Men) pushes herself against the odds - and at real risk to her life - into the frontline of Islamist terror reporting. She is very clear that Jihadists are led by false abusers of religion, completely unjustified in Islamic terms and also making the lot of Muslims worse, both inside their ‘caliphate’ and in the West. Equally, she is far from losing sight of the entrenched racism and prejudice in the West, along with the corrupt cruelty of despotic Arab regimes, which is what (she thinks) drives the Jihadists, along with their sense of powerlessness.Treading this tightrope is not easy. About halfway through the book she writes: ‘I began to be deeply worried that the way I was trying to do my job – not taking any side but speaking to all sides and challenging them all whenever I could – was becoming untenable for someone with my background. Could this kind of impartial journalism about jihadists and the War on Terror be safely practised in the West only by someone whose parents were born and raised there, rather than someone whose Muslim descent made her an object of special interest and suspicion? … These … dark thoughts … made me question the foundations and ultimate success of the West’s supposed openness to outsiders and its commitment to freedom of speech and thought.’This greater awareness raises Mekhennet’s memoir to the level of a serious and original contribution to Western political culture and self-examination. There is also much drama and even humour – such as when an Islamist leader proposes marriage to the author, only half-jokingly, at the very moment when she fears being kidnapped in the backstreets of a desperate Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon. In the final chapter, we learn the affecting story of how the 16-year-old son of Mekhennet’s cousin (in Germany) is ‘brain-washed’ into joining Islamists in Syria, unfolding in real-time as Mekhennet tells it. There is a terribly fresh reality to the torment of the boy’s ‘normal’ parents, who fear their son’s death as well as his utter alienation from them, after a mere six months of becoming disaffected. ‘They’ are ‘us’.Generally, the writer sticks to the docu-drama of what and who she encountered inside zones of terror (with detailed footnoting), and does not peddle her views or interpretations – indeed, she could perhaps have given us more analysis. However, in the last four pages Mekhennet does offer her overview of why ‘they hate us’: Western hypocrisy (with a series of invasive wars, extensive torture, drone killings, and pervasive prejudice against Muslims); the lack of dialogue within Islam about ‘what can and cannot be justified by our faith’; the feebleness of Imans and other Muslim leaders in not standing up clearly against intolerant and sexist Islamic practices; the fuelling of sectarian conflict and hence Jihadism by both Western governments and Middle Eastern leaders, for short term, blinkered ends; the ‘quiet war’ between Saudi Arabia and Iran; and the related shallow opportunism of those on all sides who seek easy answers and don’t bother to try to understand the ‘other’. She also mentions the broken homes and petty criminal backgrounds from which many Jihadists come, and the strong social bonds which they form with each other – but Mekhennet steers well clear of suggestions of widespread individual or social psychopathy, or any deep faults within Islam itself, as contributory causes.She writes from a strong humanist and deeply practical viewpoint: ‘The world is not facing a clash of civilisation or cultures, but a clash between those who want to build bridges and those who would rather see the world in polarities.’ Her idealism is based on responding to the people caught in the middle: ‘If I’ve learned anything, it’s this: a mother’s screams over the body of her murdered child sound the same, no matter if she is black, brown or white; Muslim, Jewish, or Christian; Shia or Sunni.’A minor note of criticism is that Mekhennet is ill-served by her book’s sensationalist title, while her supposedly greatest coup – unmasking the identity of the British-born Jihadist-John beheader – is the only dull part. Fortunately, the journalist’s understandable but trivial obsession with breaking a news story, rather than seeking a deeper understanding, is otherwise secondary.

It's a very readable autobiography. She looks for and finds some possible answers to the question posed by one of the victim's familes: "Why do they hate us [Westerners] so much?" The only reason I wouldn't give it five stars is because I found it a little self-glorifying at times. The author always seems to do the right thing at the right time, a little too much so to ring totally true. Perhaps this is the result of the self-belief that drove her to become a top journalist, so maybe it's no bad thing, but it left me feeling a little dissatisfied.There's actually not that much journeying behind enemy lines really, but nevertheless there's some good insights. The accounts of her treatment at the hands of Egyptian intelligence and how she went about uncovering the identity of Jihadi John are excellent. Her own experience as a Muslim immigrant is skilfully woven into the story.

What an amazing woman is Souad, the author of this autobiographical book. I don't know how she could travel to the places she did and put her life on the line for the sake of revealing truth and helping us understand the thinking of jihadists. She could soeasily have been seduced by the arguments of extreme Islamist but she maintained her integrity and kept true to her upbringing.What is really scary is there is no end in view to all the violence and terrorism. It's quite depressing. It would be nice if she could report on something positive next time. Like the miracles we hear about in the refugee camps.

Really interesting - well worth a read. Part memoir, part account of the many people Souad Mekhennet has interviewed in her career. The title does suggest there's more about an interview with someone in so-called Islamic State than there actually is - it's actually a tiny part of the book - but that's a small quibble.