Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia

Correspondent Ahmed Rashid brings the shadowy world of the Taliban-—the world’s most extreme and radical Islamic organisation — into sharp focus in this enormously insightful book. He offers the only authoritative account of the Taliban available to English-language readers, explaining the Taliban’s rise to power, its impact on Afghanistan and the region, its role in oil and gas company decisions, and the effects of changing American attitudes toward the Taliban.

He also describes the new face of Islamic fundamentalism and explains why Afghanistan has become the world centre for international terrorism.

Called “Pakistan’s best and bravest reporter” by Christopher Hitchens in Vanity Fair, Ahmed Rashid was a correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review for more than twenty years, covering Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia. He now writes for BBC Online, the Washington Post, El Mundo, the International Herald Tribune, the New York Review of Books, and other foreign and Pakistani newspapers. He has been covering the wars in Afghanistan, as well as the wars in Pakistan and Tajikistan, since 1979. He is the author of Descent into Chaos and Jihad.

NEW TO THE SECOND EDITION:
• How the Taliban has regained its strength
• How and why the Taliban has spread across Central Asia
• How the Taliban has helped Al Qaeda’s spread into Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, and the Far East
• Why the Afghan people feel the United States is losing the war
• A major new preface and an all-new final chapter