In February 1996, Mohamed Sifaoui, an Algerian-born journalist, survived a bomb attack that killed several friends and colleagues—and thirty passers-by. "That day I realized something fundamental: I absolutely had to fight the fascist ideology of the Islamists and those who supported it, so that I would never again have to leave somewhere hoping that a bomb wouldn't go off." While covering a trial in 2002 Sifaoui came into contact with members of an active Al Qaeda cell in Paris. Sifaoui invented an identity and was able to win their trust and convince the terrorists that he shared their aims.

Posing as Djamel Mostaghanemi, a pro-fundamentalist journalist, Sifaoui recorded and filmed his new associates speaking with alarming frankness about how they attract new recruits to the jihad, raise funds, spread propaganda, and, most chilling, identify targets for attack. Facing the possibility of exposure all the time, Sifaoui was at great personal risk, never more so than when he penetrated deep into the organization's hierarchy and was invited to meetings in London, Al Qaeda's European nerve center. A shocking diary, Inside Al Qaeda is also a testimony to one man's display of courage in the pursuit of truth.