Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World

  • Tag: michael scheuer

Book thumbnail image

Assassinating terrorist leaders: A matter of international law

By Louis René Beres

Osama bin Laden was assassinated by U.S. special forces on May 1, 2011. Although media emphasis thus far has been focused almost entirely on the pertinent operational and political issues surrounding this “high value” killing, there are also important jurisprudential aspects to the case. These aspects require similar attention. Whether or not killing Osama was a genuinely purposeful assassination from a strategic perspective, a question that will be debated for years to come, we should now also inquire: Was it legal?

Read More
Book thumbnail image

Rising generation of al-Qaeda poses threat in wake of bin Laden’s death

Michael Scheuer, former chief of the CIA’s bin Laden unit, wrote in the biography Osama bin Laden that Mr. bin Laden’s “has anticipated a war of attrition, one that might last decades” and “has given no indication that he expects to live long enough to finish the job.” Mr. Scheuer believes that younger al-Qaeda activists have already been well groomed for the future.

Here we present an exclusive excerpt from Osama bin Laden that considers the threat

Read More
Book thumbnail image

Michael Scheuer sits down with Stephen Colbert

Michael Scheuer was the chief of the CIA’s bin Laden unit from 1996 to 1999 and remained a counterterrorism analyst until 2004. He is the author of many books, including the bestselling Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terrorism. His latest book is the biography Osama bin Laden, a much-needed corrective, hard-headed, closely reasoned portrait that tracks the man’s evolution from peaceful Saudi dissident to America’s Most Wanted.

Among the extensive media attention both the book and Scheuer have received so far, he was interviewed on The Colbert Report just this week.

Read More