The New Jackals: what Wikipedia removed
The New Jackals is a 1998 book by Simon Reeve on Ramzi Yousef, Osama bin Laden and the “militant network” Al-Qaeda. The opening once said the book “warned that the network would launch devastating terrorist attacks,” and noted its relevance “following the September 11, 2001 attacks.” Both passages are gone; the opening is now a single sentence, and militant survives once elsewhere in the article. A reader today does not learn that the book warned of Al-Qaeda’s coming terrorist attacks before September 11, 2001, or that it was read in light of those attacks afterward.
The word “militant” appeared 1 times in this article’s opening at its peak, in 2005. Today the opening carries none; the body carries 1. Checked against the full current article on 2026-08-01.
The tracked words, snapshot by snapshot
Section titled “The tracked words, snapshot by snapshot”| word | 2005 | 2010 | 2015 | 2020 | 6 October 2023 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| militant | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| terror | 2 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
Counts are of the opening paragraph only, the part most readers, search engines and AI training sets ever quote.
What was taken out
Section titled “What was taken out”- The book’s subtitle description was reworded without changing its meaning.
- The sentence warning that Al-Qaeda would launch devastating terrorist attacks, and a reference to supporting classified documents, is gone.
- The note that the book gained relevance following the September 11, 2001 attacks is gone.
How it opened then, and now
Section titled “How it opened then, and now”2005 (revision 17345000):
The New Jackals: Ramzi Yousef, Osama bin Laden and the future of terrorism is a book by Simon Reeve , published in 1998 . One of the first books to investigate the topic of Osama bin Laden , Ramzi Yousef and the militant network Al-Qaeda , the book warned that the network would launch devastating terrorist attacks. Classified documents and evidence obtained by Reeve detailed the existence, development and aims of the organisation. The New Jackals was a New York Times and international bestseller. It was described as essential or recommended reading by many newspapers , magazines , government officials and academics around the world, including Newsweek , U.S. News & World Report , TIME , The …
2025 (revision 1276523819):
Book by Simon Reeve The New Jackals: Ramzi Yousef, Osama bin Laden and the future of terrorism is a 1998 book by Simon Reeve .
Related
Section titled “Related”- The drift report: what changed across all 61,944 watched articles
- The case file for this article, with every snapshot and every marked removal
- Who made the cuts: removals grouped by the account that made them
- The live article on Wikipedia
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