Book Review: Taliban by Ahmed Rashid

[ejazr]

I am planning to share some books that I have read so that other people can read and discuss it and hopefully learn from each other.

The first one is the seminal book on Taliban by Ahmed Rashid. A book review and link to the book is on Defence Wiki here

Taliban - Militant Islam, , Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia


Here is an interview on CSPAN on the book in April 2010 and gives a gist of the book for those who like to watch rather than read (although READING the book is highly recommended )

Q&A with Ahmed Rashid : CSPAN

 

[Ray]

Read Bear Hug by Brig Yusaf (Lahore Publishers) about organising, arming and conducting the Mujahideens in Afghanistan. He was the actual person from the ISI who orchestrated the whole show.


Also read John K Cooley's 'Unholy Wars' (Penguin). He covers the first behind the scenes the anti communist alliance the US formed with militant Islamic forces to oppose the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. In this controversial book, he brings out the first-behind-the-scene accounts of this alliance and how the CIA planned and ran the 'holy war' in Afghanistan. Cooley covers important events that took place in Algiers, the impact of Pakistan's military coup in in October 1999 on the Indo Pak relations, the political destabilisation of the Philippines through the Muslim separatist movement which began in 1998.

 

[ejazr]

Here is another book focussing on Pakistan and its role as a Frontline state.

This is a book by journalist Zahid Hussain. Again, a book review and a download link is availble in DWN Frontline Pakistan - By Zahid Hussain

Below are two videos that disucss the book with the author and give the ideas of the book from the author themselves.

Rizvi and Hussain at the Asia Society

New America Foundation - Frontline Pakistan