Since 9/11, al-Qaeda has dominated discussions of national and international security. Yet conflicting assumptions about the nature of the group and the implications of bin Ladin's death abound. Rather than just providing yet another biography of al-Qaeda, Christina Hellmich forensically examines the most authoritative sources on which the present understanding of al-Qaeda relies, examining the discrepancies between what is reported and what can realistically be known. The result is a penetrating insight into an organization that for all its notoriety is one of the least understood of our time.