Since 9/11, the Taliban have dominated headlines around the world. The Taliban government, allied to Osama Bin Laden, collapsed dramatically following the Anglo-American invasion of 2001. Since then however the movement has showed an unexpected ability to evolve, and has drawn the world's only superpower into a protracted and seemingly unwinnable conflict in this strategically vital country. No…
An introduction to the geography, history, government, people, and economy of the country sometimes called the Switzerland of Asia.
More than 3,000 prisoners in the war on terrorism have been captured, held, and interrogated in Afghanistan alone. But no one knows what transpired in those interactions between prisoner and interrogator -- until now.rnIn The Interrogators, Chris Mackey, the senior interrogator at Bagram Air Base and in Kandahar, where al-Qaeda and Taliban prisoners were first detained and questioned, lifts the…
This book examines the troubled history of a nation whose global relevance continues to hold the international spotlight. Reaching as far back as the seventh century A.D., when Arab armies imported the new religion of Islam into a predominantly Buddhist country, Martin Ewans shows how centuries of invasions, fierce tribal rivalries, and powerful dynasties led to the creation of an Afghan empire…
An American reporter's chilling account of being kidnapped and imprisoned by the Taliban, in the no-man's-land between Afghanistan and Pakistan Jere Van Dyk was on the wrong side of the border. He and three Afghan guides had crossed into the tribal areas of Pakistan, where no Westerner had ventured for years, hoping to reach the home of a local chieftain by nightfall. But then a dozen armed men…
Caught between hostile nations, warring factions and competing ideologies, Afghanistan was in turmoil following the US invasion. Travelling entirely on foot and following the inaccessible mountainous route once taken by the Mughal emperor Babur the Great, Rory Stewart was nearly defeated by the extreme, hostile conditions. Only with the help of an unexpected companion, and the generosity of the…