Aleksander Makowski: “Tropiąc Bin Ladena” (Tracking Bin Laden, 2025)

The work

The book came out on 18 June 2025. According to the publisher, it describes intelligence operations in Afghanistan in 1997–2007: crossings of mountain passes, long waits in hotels and at airports for information from agents, building relationships with sources, and the political and commercial interests at play in the country. The publisher notes that it shows the routine, boredom and uncertainty of this work, not just the dramatic moments.¹

According to a note from 2015, the author had already published a book titled “Tropiąc Bin Ladena”, described there as a bestseller; we have not established whether the 2025 edition is a reissue or a new version.²

The real background

The publisher places the account in the context of the Report on the activities of the WSI (the so-called Macierewicz report) and raises the question of the value of the information gathered by Polish agents before and after the attacks of 11 September 2001; in its view, Poland’s intelligence potential was considerable but poorly used.¹

The report was made public by a decision of the President of the Republic of Poland of 16 February 2007 (Monitor Polski 2007, item 110). We do not summarise its contents – see the card WSI.³

What can be verified

The author’s service in the intelligence service of the Polish People’s Republic until 1990 is documented (IPN catalogue). His later collaboration with UOP and military intelligence is stated only in the publisher’s note.^2,4

The publisher acknowledges that the author’s role in Polish intelligence is controversial, but does not elaborate.¹

What is not known

We do not check the activities described in the book against documents: they concern a period whose files are not public, and the only description of the contents available to us is the publisher’s note. We found no scholarly review of the book.¹