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 and remains involved with Britain's Jane's Information Group. Late 2019 he covered the conflict in the Central African Republic, a United Nations "Peacekeeping" effort for Jane's Defence Weekly. Sadly, he found a country striven with violence.In his day the author 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 documentary films including Africa's Killing Fields (on the Ugandan civil war) as well as AIDS: The African Connection, nominated for a Pink Magnolia Award in Shanghai, China.

He also produced an hour-long television programme on Russia's war in Afghanistan in 1985.One of his most recent major books, 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' and 'A History of Terror'.