About the Author

Al J. Venter is a specialist military writer who has had over fifty books published. He started his career with _International Defence Review,_ covering military developments in the Middle East and Africa. He has been writing on insurgencies across the globe for half a century, involved with Jane's Information Group for more than thirty years. He was a stringer for the BBC, NBC News, as well as London's _Daily Express_ and _Sunday Express_. He branched into television work in the early 1980s, producing more than a hundred documentaries, including _Africa's Killing Fields_, on the Ugandan civil war, and _AIDS: The African Connection_, which was nominated for a Pink Magnolia Award. His last major book, _Portugal's Guerrilla Wars in Africa_, was nominated for New York's Arthur Goodzeit military history book award. Venter writes extensively for several Pen & Sword military history series including 'Cold War 1945-1991', 'Death Squads' (on massacres and genocides) and 'Architects of Terror'.