The exile : the stunning inside story of Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda in flight / Cathy Scott-Clark and Adrian Levy.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 525-597) and index.

"Shit. I think we bit off more than we could chew." -- "Terrorism is a duty and assassination is a Sunnah." -- "These Arabs...they have killed Afghans. They have trained their guns on Afghan live...We want them out." -- "Poor ones, this is not how revenge is, or will be." -- "The banging was so strong that I felt at some point that my skull was in pieces." -- "If you bid us plunge into the ocean, we would follow you." -- "The reprisals of the mujahideen shall come like lightning bolts." -- "We will get you, CIA team, inshallah, we will bring you down." -- "I'm back with the people I was with before." -- "We go to a house, we fuck with some people, and we leave. This is just a longer fight." -- "What really happened doesn't matter if there is an official story behind it that 99.999% of the world would believe." -- "It is going to be worse when my father dies. The world is going to be very, very nasty...it will be a disaster." -- "It will be just the end of the beginning rather than the beginning of the end."

From September 11, 2001 to May 2, 2011, Osama Bin Laden evaded intelligence services and special forces units, drones and hunter killer squads. The Exile tells the extraordinary inside story of that decade through the eyes of those who witnessed it: bin Laden's four wives and many children, his deputies and military strategists, his spiritual advisor, the CIA, Pakistan's ISI, and many others who have never before told their stories. Investigative journalists Cathy Scott-Clark and Adrian Levy gained unique access to Osama bin Laden's inner circle, and they recount the flight of Al Qaeda's forces and bin Laden's innocent family members, the gradual formation of ISIS by bin Laden's lieutenants, and bin Laden's rising paranoia and eroding control over his organization. They also reveal that the Bush White House knew the whereabouts of bin Laden's family and Al Qaeda's military and religious leaders, but rejected opportunities to capture them, pursuing war in the Persian Gulf instead, and offer insights into how Al Qaeda will attempt to regenerate itself in the coming years. While we think we know what happened in Abbottabad on May 2, 2011, we know little about the wilderness years that led to that shocking event. As authoritative in its scope and detail as it is propuslively readable, The Exile is a landmark work of investigation and reporting.