AL-QAEDA: The Terror Network That Threatens the World

BBC correspondent Corbin has been pursuing bin Laden for a long time ("For three years he was my screen-saver"). The West's response to terrorism, she says provocatively, is characterized by "weakness and exploitation and a failure of imagination... not to mention political correctness...." She raises questions about, for instance, the failure of the siege at Tora Bora, but most of her background history and account of events up through the present, though compact and readable, will be familiar to American readers. Maps. (Sept.)