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Book cover of Brotherhood of Warriors: Behind Enemy Lines with a Commando in One of the World's Most Elite Counterterrorism Units
Strategy & Weapons of War, Public Health & Safety, Terrorism, Espionage, General & Miscellaneous Military History, Israel/Palestine - History, Jewish History, Diplomacy & International Relations, Armed Forces History

Brotherhood of Warriors: Behind Enemy Lines with a Commando in One of the World's Most Elite Counterterrorism Units

by Aaron Cohen, Douglas Century
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Overview

At the age of eighteen, Aaron Cohen left Beverly Hills to prove himself in the crucible of the armed forces. He was determined to be a part of Israel's most elite security cadre, akin to the American Green Berets and Navy SEALs. After fifteen months of grueling training designed to break down each individual man and to rebuild him as a warrior, Cohen was offered the only post a non-Israeli can hold in the special forces. In 1996 he joined a top-secret, highly controversial unit that dispatches operatives disguised as Arabs into the Palestinian-controlled West Bank to abduct terrorist leaders and bring them to Israel for interrogation and trial.

Between 1996 and 1998, Aaron Cohen would learn Hebrew and Arabic; become an expert in urban counterterror warfare, the martial art of Krav Maga, and undercover operations; and participate in dozens of life-or-death missions. He would infiltrate a Hamas wedding to seize a wanted terrorist and pose as an American journalist to set a trap for one of the financiers behind the Dizengoff Massacre, taking him down in a brutal, hand-to-hand struggle. A propulsive, gripping read, Cohen's story is a rare, fly-on-the-wall view into the shadowy world of "black ops" that redefines invincible strength, true danger, and inviolable security.

Synopsis

Combining the behind-enemy-lines suspense of Black Hawk Down with the first-person intensity of Jarhead, this is the heart-pounding story of a young American who became one of the most elite counterterrorism commandos in the world.

Washington Jewish Week

“The book gives an unvarnished account of life in an elite Israeli counterterrorism unit—a side of life with which few Israelis and almost no foreigners are familiar.”

About the Author, Aaron Cohen

Aaron Cohen grew up in Beverly Hills, California. After spending three years in one of Israel's "black ops" units, Sayeret Duvdevan, he returned home and founded IMS Security, a consulting firm that specializes in protecting politicians, business executives, Hollywood actors, and rock stars, and offers counterterrorism training to the United States military, to local and state police departments, and to various SWAT units around the country. He lives in Los Angeles.

William Queen is the author of the "New York Times" bestseller "Under and Alone" and "Armed and Dangerous," He spent twenty years as a special agent with the U.S. Department of the Treasury, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. A Vietnam veteran, Queen devoted his career to law enforcement, serving first as a local police officer and then as a U.S. Border Patrol agent before joining ATF. He is among the country's foremost experts on the violent world of outlaw motorcycle gangs and has lectured widely to law-enforcement organizations in multiple countries. For his ground-breaking undercover work playing the part of biker "Billy St. John," William Queen was awarded the 2001 Federal Bar Association's Medal of Valor.
Douglas Century is the author of "Barney Ross and Street Kingdom," the co-author of the "New York Times" bestsellers" Under and Alone "and "Takedown," and a contributing writer for "The New York Times," His nonfiction work has appeared in such publications as "Details, Rolling Stone, Men's Journal, New York, Vibe, Radar, Blender, Newsday," and "The Guardian," Century is a cum laude graduate of Princeton University. He lives in New York City.

"From the Hardcover edition."

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Editorials

Washington Jewish Week

β€œThe book gives an unvarnished account of life in an elite Israeli counterterrorism unitβ€”a side of life with which few Israelis and almost no foreigners are familiar.”

Kirkus Reviews

Canadian-born and California-raised Cohen describes his work with the Israeli group Sayeret Duvdevan in this you-are-there debut memoir. The author went on his first mission as a member of this elite counterterrorism unit in March 1996. The investigation of an explosion at Tel Aviv's Dizengoff Mall was the first of many bloody crime scenes ("battlefield scenes," he calls them) Cohen had to deal with, but that was the life he chose when he moved to Israel to protect his people. He brings us into the shadowy world of Sayeret Duvdevan, offering details of his missions and his training, throwing in some contemporary and historical context, introducing us to his comrades-in-arms and delivering numerous gory anecdotes. At times Cohen comes off as stridently militant. "I recognize that what I've written here may sound unduly harsh, pro-militaristic, even anti-Arab in places," he writes in an epilogue, "but I am writing this not as a propagandist but as a pragmatist." This acknowledgement doesn't make his attitude any less jarring, though it's obviously hard to be objective in such violently graphic descriptions: slipping in a pool of blood at the scene of a suicide bombing, looking at a soldier who's had one leg blown off and will probably bleed to death before medical help arrives. Cohen's book contains an inherent contradiction. He paints himself as a lover of his God, his family and his country, an idealist who wants to do the right thing, but he displays throughout a streak of fanaticism that is clearly a prerequisite for membership in the Sayeret Duvdevan. Readers in less-extreme circumstances may find his attitude difficult to appreciate. Relentlessly bleak and extremely depressing. Agent:Richard Abate/ICM

From the Publisher

"Drummond's performance is congruent with the story.... He especially shines when performing the many conversations as he ably brings out the appropriate emotions." β€”-AudioFile

Book Details

Published
April 1, 2009
Publisher
HarperCollins Publishers
Pages
304
Format
Paperback
ISBN
9780061236167

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