Quotes of the Day

Aukai Collins earned a nickname when he was fighting the jihad in Chechnya in the mid-1990s: "Abu Mushakil," or Father of Trouble. He had already seen plenty of it as a 19-year-old in Afghanistan, where he learned to fight in 1993; and later during his stints as soldier and gunrunner in Kosovo and the Caucasus—a career path that might have made the Hawaiian native an early John Walker Lindh. Instead, he turned his back on holy war and started working in counterterrorism for Uncle Sam, a tale told in My Jihad, an often horrifying combination of frank simplicity and cold-blooded violence.

Collins' life has been steeped in aggression. He was a battered teenager who saw his mother, a small-time dealer and full-time addict, murdered by drug runners when he was eight. After being sentenced to a maximum security prison in California for armed robbery in 1991, he found Islam. From there he headed to Afghanistan to train with Harakat-ul Jihad, then to Chechnya, where he lost a leg in a firefight with Russian special forces, and finally to Kosovo to help fight the Serbs. He describes with childlike glee his love of weapons and tactics. A daring nighttime raid on a Russian bunker becomes a brutal game when he and his comrades strip and take the encampment bare-chested, armed only with knives. For Collins, war is more of a creative challenge than a religious obligation. He claims he gave up the jihad in 1996 to stop terrorism because he felt betrayed by its messy logistics and shady characters, but this doesn't ring entirely true. That's not to say Collins is anti-American: it's more likely that after years of combat and the loss of his leg, he was physically and ideologically exhausted.

With jihad abandoned, Collins' amazing tale loses clarity as he talks about the frustrations of working as an informant for the FBI and the cia. According to the author, his plans were consistently tied up in red tape, not least when he had an opportunity to visit Osama bin Laden's training camp in Afghanistan. Collins also claims he met Hani Hanjour, the Saudi Arabian pilot of the plane that crashed into the Pentagon, and informed the FBI. Government officials have contradicted this assertion, saying that after Sept. 11, Collins denied knowing Hanjour.

Collins claims to have known many of the people involved in Islamic fundamentalist circles within the U.S., and he plainly feels their activities and intentions were no secret either to himself or the U.S. government. Even if we don't believe every story Collins tells, his dual allegiance to America and Islam provides us with an intriguing insider's perspective on the alien world of jihad. For his part, the author says he now hopes to return to Afghanistan, "not to get involved on either side," but to interview Taliban soldiers and write a new book about the group from the inside. Sounds like he's got the experience, the courage, and a very handy Rolodex.

• Ed Finn
• Aukai Collins tells the tale of his journey from a Californian jail to the front lines of holy war