 | |
| Author | Frederick Forsyth |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | |
| Published | Random House in 2013 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (paperback) |
| Pages | 352 (paperback) |
| ISBN | 9780552170154 |
| Preceded by | The Cobra |
The Kill List is a novel by English writer Frederick Forsyth, published in 2013 by Random House. [1] The story concerns the response to murders by Muslim radicals.
Several random mid-level authority figures in the United States and Great Britain are brutally murdered by Islamist extremists, all of whom seem to have been radicalized by the online sermons of a mysterious veiled man known only as "the Preacher". Perplexed by his unknown origins and his flawless command of the English language, the U.S. government soon places him on the Kill List, a list approved by the U.S. President and his senior advisors of individuals who are to be eliminated as soon as possible.
The agency charged with finding and killing the people on the list is the Technical Operations Support Activity or TOSA. It soon dispatches its best headhunter, a retired Marine lieutenant colonel known to most only as "the Tracker" [2] (who also has a personal agenda in this matter, as his father was murdered by one of the Preacher's followers), to discover the Preacher's identity and eliminate him. [3] [4]
The Tracker's investigations are slow to progress until he recruits a young and very skilled aspyish computer hacker he codenames "Ariel" to act as his tech support. Ariel traces the digital signatures of the Preacher's sermons to find him somewhere in Somalia, but the Tracker realises that the Preacher must have an ally in England to broadcast his sermons from and act as a middleman between the Preacher and his followers. The Tracker's investigation into the Preacher's history uncovers a British Pakistani pickle mogul who he discovers to be a childhood friend of the Preacher, and Ariel obtains his IP address to uncover the Preacher's location.
Even as more of the Preacher's sermons result in further violent shootings, TOSA's investigations remain fruitless until the Mossad reveals to TOSA that they have a Falasha agent codenamed "Opal" in Somalia, who they can use to get close to the Preacher: Opal eventually becomes part of the Preacher's inner circle, allowing TOSA to close in on the Preacher. Meanwhile, a band of Somali pirates belonging to another clan of Muslim extremists headed by a sadistic sheikh, capture a Swedish cargo ship. Onboard, the son of the ship's owner is working as a sailor under a fake identity. The sadistic sheikh takes the Swedish boy to torture him.
Ariel is eventually able to mirror the Preacher's channel, and the Tracker decides to force the Preacher into the open. With the help of a film crew, a skilled impressionist, and an actor who somewhat resembles the Preacher, the Tracker creates a fake video showing the Preacher exposing his personal history and confessing to be a fraud, which he has Ariel stream through the Preacher's channel. The video has the desired effect: the Preacher is unsettled and attempts to flee, allowing Ariel to follow both him and Opal via satellite.
The Preacher buys the Swedish boy from the sadistic sheikh, intending to personally behead him on his next livestream to make his followers believe in him again. The exchange is to take place in the desert. The Tracker, who has followed the exchange through Ariel's input, parachutes in the vicinity of the exchange with a British Army Pathfinder Platoon: they successfully rescue both Opal and the Swedish boy, killing all the extremists from both clans, and the Tracker personally kills the Preacher in a knife-fight.
British Somaliland, officially the Somaliland Protectorate, was a protectorate of the United Kingdom in modern Somaliland. During its existence, the territory was bordered by Italian Somalia, French Somali Coast and Abyssinia. From 1940 to 1941, it was occupied by the Italians and was part of Italian East Africa.
Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, , commonly known in the United States as "The Blind Sheikh", was a blind Egyptian Islamist militant who served a life sentence at the Federal Medical Center, Butner near Butner, North Carolina, United States. Formerly a resident of New York City, Abdel-Rahman and nine others were convicted of seditious conspiracy in 1995. His prosecution grew out of investigations of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
Abdullah el-Faisal is a Jamaican Muslim cleric who preached in the United Kingdom until he was convicted of stirring up racial hatred and urging his followers to murder Jews, Hindus, Christians, Americans and other "unbelievers".
Frederick McCarthy Forsyth is an English novelist and journalist. He is best known for thrillers such as The Day of the Jackal, The Odessa File, The Fourth Protocol, The Dogs of War, The Devil's Alternative, The Fist of God, Icon, The Veteran, Avenger, The Afghan, The Cobra and The Kill List. Forsyth's works frequently appear on best-sellers lists and more than a dozen of his titles have been adapted to film. By 2006, he had sold more than 70 million books in more than 30 languages.
Anjem Choudary is a British Islamist who has been described as "the face" of militant Islamism or the "best known" Islamic extremist in Britain. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2024 after being found guilty of directing a terror organisation.
Burao, also spelt Bur'o or Bur'ao, is the capital of the Togdheer region and the second largest city in Somaliland. Burao was the site of the declaration of an independent Somaliland on 18 May 1991.
Avenger is a political thriller novel by English writer Frederick Forsyth, published in September 2003. It was adapted for television as the 2006 film Avenger starring Sam Elliott.
The Jackal is a fictional character, the principal antagonist of the novel The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth. He is an assassin who is contracted by the OAS French terrorist group of the early 1960s to kill Charles de Gaulle, then President of France. The book was published on 7 June 1971, in the year following de Gaulle's death, and became an instant bestseller. In the 1973 original film adaptation, he is portrayed by Edward Fox. A revised version of the character was portrayed by Bruce Willis in the 1997 remake adaptation of the original film, having a divergent storyline and set in the U.S., with a fictional First Lady of the United States as the target of the assassination. In the 2024 series, he is portrayed by Eddie Redmayne.
Sayyid Muḥammad ibn 'Abdallāh Hassan was a Somali religious, political, and military leader who founded and headed the Dervish movement, which led a Holy war against British, Italian, and Ethiopian intrusions in the Horn of Africa. He was famously known by the British Empire as the Mad Mullah. In 1917, the Ottoman Empire referred to Hassan as the "Emir of the Somali". Due to his successful completion of the Hajj to Mecca, his complete memorization of the Quran and his purported descent from the Islamic prophet Muhammad, his name is sometimes preluded with honorifics such as Hajji, Hafiz, Emir or Sayyid. His influence led him to being regarded the “Father of Somali nationalism”.
Fuad Mohamed Qalaf, also known as Fuad Shangole, is a Somali-Swedish militant Islamist.
Feiz Mohammad is an Australian Muslim preacher.
Sheikh Uways Al-Barawi was a Somali scholar credited with reviving Islam in 19th century East Africa.
Sheikh Bashir Sheikh Yusuf Sheikh Hassan was a Somali religious leader famed for leading the 1945 Sheikh Bashir Rebellion against the British colonial authority in Somaliland.
Yusuf Mahamud Ibrahim was a Somali ruler. He was the third and most powerful Sultan of the Geledi sultanate, reigning from 1798 to 1848. Under the reign of Sultan Yusuf, his kingdom entered its apex, he managed to modernize his economy and his kingdom quickly became one of the wealthiest states in East Africa. Yusuf frequently toured the sultanate and built rapport with his many clients and allies. He successfully consolidated Geledi power during conquest of Bardera and expelling extremist ideology from his region. It was under his rule he manage to establish many trading partners and allies such as the Sultanate of Witu. He also exacted tribute from Sultan Said of the Omani Empire starting from 1843.
Hassan Bin Muhamad Bin Shehata Bin Mousa al-Anani, known as Sheikh Hassan Shehata, was a scholar who was killed in the small village of Zawyat Abu Musalam in Giza
Ahmad Diriye, also known as Ahmad Umar or Abu Ubaidah al-Somali, is the Emir of Somalia’s Islamist group Al-Shabaab. He was listed by the U.S. State Department as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist in April 2015. The Rewards for Justice Program currently offers up to 10 million USD for information regarding him.
Abdul Qādir Mūmin is a Somali Islamist and the leader of the Islamic State in Somalia. He was formerly a senior religious authority in al-Shabaab.
Ahmad Musa Jibril, also known as Abu Khaled, is a Palestinian-American Islamic radical preacher, cleric, sheikh, and imam. In 2004 he was convicted on 42 charges including fraud. Ideologically influenced by the Sahwa movement, which combines the Islamist revolutionary ideology of Sayyid Qutb mixed with Saudi Wahabbism, he promotes Salafist militant Islamism, and has extensively preached about the Syrian Civil War in highly emotive pro-Sunni terms. While not known to be affiliated directly to any particular group, it has been claimed that he has been an inspirational source for many English speaking pro-Sunni jihadist fighters in Syria, in both al-Nusra and Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, and elsewhere.
The 1945 Sheikh Bashir Rebellion was a rebellion waged by tribesmen of the Habr Je'lo clan in the cities of Burao and Erigavo in the former British Somaliland colony and protectorate against British authorities in July 1945 led by Sheikh Bashir, a Somali religious leader. This rebellion occurred two months after the end of the Second World War in Europe, and post-war conditions, and the impending collapse of the British Empire, may have been the reasons for the rebellion in the first place.
Boy from Heaven, released in most English-speaking countries as Cairo Conspiracy, is a 2022 Arabic-language political thriller film directed by Swedish filmmaker Tarik Saleh. The film is a co-production between Sweden, France and Finland. It had its world premiere on 20 May 2022 at the 75th Cannes Film Festival, where it was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or. Saleh was awarded Best Screenplay, and the film received the François Chalais Prize at Cannes. It was selected as the Swedish entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 95th Academy Awards but was not nominated.