Prize-winning journalist Jason Burke’s Al-Qaeda – now updated with new material on Iraq, Afghanistan and the July 2005 London bombings – is acknowledged to be the most accurate, readable and expert account yet of the complex nature of Islamic extremism.

Burke has spent a decade reporting from the heart of the Middle East and gaining unprecedented access to the world of radical Islam. Drawing on his frontline experience of recent events, on secret documents and astonishing interviews with intelligence officers, Taliban foot soldiers, militants, mujahedeen commanders and Osama bin Laden’s associates, he reveals the full story of al-Qaeda.