Enemies Within: Inside the NYPD's Secret Spying Unit and Bin Laden's Final Plot Against America

Two Pulitzer Prize–winning journalists take an unflinching look at one of the most sensitive post–9/11 national security investigations—a race to prevent an al-Qaeda bomber from launching Osama bin Laden’s final attack on American soil. In Enemies Within, Matt Apuzzo and Adam Goldman reveal the complex and often contradictory state of counterterrorism and intelligence in America through the pursuit of Najibullah Zazi, a terrorist who trained under one of bin Laden’s most trusted deputies. Zazi and his coconspirators represented one of the most dangerous terrorist cells operating inside the United States. Apuzzo and Goldman lift the veil of secrecy to expose the strengths and weaknesses of our counterterrorism measures. This real-life spy story—drawn from previously unpublished NYPD documents and interviews with intelligence sources—shows that while many programs are invasive, they are often counterproductive at best. After 9/11, New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly initiated an audacious plan for the Big Apple: dispatch a vast network of plainclothes officers and paid informants—called “rakers” and “mosque crawlers”—into Muslim neighborhoods to infiltrate religious communities and eavesdrop on college campuses. Police amassed data on innocent people, often for their religious or political beliefs. But when it mattered most, those strategies failed to identify the most imminent threats. Enemies Within tackles the hard questions about the measures we take to protect ourselves from real and perceived threats. Apuzzo and Goldman take readers inside America’s sprawling counterterrorism machine as it operates at full throttle. They reveal what works, what doesn’t, and what Americans have unknowingly given up.