John Banks

BlowBack John Banks

The true story of the foiling of the Lashkar-e-Taiba and al Qaeda plot to bomb the 2010 FIFA World Cup, in South Africa, and how it was foiled based, in part, on the memoir of John Banks, a former DSO undercover agent with a controversial history. In 2008, during an undercover operation involving Chris Dalcros, the 2nd largest cocaine importer into South Africa at the time, it is John's murky past in the worlds of mercenary recruitment and espionage that alerts him to the true nature of the people Dalcros is now involved with. But all is far from well with the operation. For one thing the Directorate of Special Operations or "Scorpions" are themselves under fire from South Africa's political and law enforcement establishment. For another, the deeper that John gets in with the terrorists, so his family are threatened by both them and foreign intelligence agencies. More and more, John becomes convinced that the CIA want the atrocity to go ahead. In the UK, receiving medical treatment after incurring a gunshot wound, John vows to go public and is in turn threatened by MI5's T-Branch. Then, with the Scorpions disbanded by President Zuma, John and his former colleagues have to all but blackmail the Home Affairs Minister into taking executive action. The SADF take out the terrorists, secretly, in Mozambique, to avert South Africa's formal involvement in the war on terror and other, connected, terrorist atrocities are foiled at the same time. Only now, Euro 2016 is also under threat. Based primarily on John's account this book, and accompanying documentary, is backed up by meticulous analysis as to the rise of Lashker-e-Taiba, and the first generation of al Qaeda, of the role of General Gull (renegade ISI officer from Pakistan) and his network in Africa, the impact of drone attacks and military incursions in Pakistan and the deteriorating situation in Somalia. The book also draws on e-mail correspondence between John Banks, his DSO handler and US Department of Homeland security and other primary source material.