To the Mountains

As one of theearliestArabs to join the Afghan Jihad, theAlgerian IslamistAbdullah Anas counted as brothers-in-arms the future icons of al-Qaeda's global war, from Abdullah Azzam to Osama bin Laden, and befriended key Afghanresistance leaderssuch as Ahmad Shah Massoud. Brushing shoulders witheveryone from Zarqawi to Haqqani, Anasdistancedhimself from their movements, disagreeing with their narrow interpretations ofpoliticalIslam. While he remains committed to Jihad,to this dayAnas takes issue with the extremist trajectories of his one-time companions. Co-written with investigative journalist Tam Hussein,To the Mountainsis an intimate and penetrating portrait of the networks that formed during the Afghan-Soviet war. In this revealing memoir, Anas shatters some of al-Qaeda's foundational myths, and rethinks what it means to be a Jihadist in the modern world.