Rashid - Taliban : the power of militant Islam in Afghanistan and beyond

Read this remarkable book and the bewildering complexity of Afghan politics and the deadly over-spill of chaos, narcotics and sectarian violence into the surrounding region will become clear.

Patrick Seale, Sunday Times

The first credible account of the rise to power of the Taliban.

Tariq Ali, New Left Review

Rashid has a feel for the characters in this imbroglio, who are as outlandish as any from the old Great Game.

Rupert Edis, Sunday Telegraph

Ahmed Rashids book describes the stuff that Bond [films] are made of. Warring tribes, clashing empires, fanatics with dreams of world domination, violence and sex.. If anyone understands the place Rashid does.

Jason Burke, Observer

Rashid tells a complicated story clearly. He places the rise of the Taliban in the context of the Afghan civil war, the energy polices of the Central Asian republics and the interests of American, Saudi and Pakistani intelligence services.

Robin Banerji, Daily Telegraph

This is a riveting, balanced and well-informed book.

International Herald Tribune

In this excellent, highly readable book, Ahmed Rashid succeeds in mixing detailed analysis not only with anecdote but also with a heartfelt sympathy for innocent peoples who for decades have been caught up in games of international rivalry and who appear fated to remain forever in a Hobbesian state of war.

Roger Howard, Spectator

The author describes the insights he has gained, through personal experience of Afghanistan over the past decade, into the secretive and bizarre Taliban leadership.

Richard Beeston, New Statesman

Rashid has written the most thorough account of the Taliban to date, and has enclosed it within a history of Afghanistan relating back to the Great Game.

Neil Quilliam, BRISMES Newsletter

Thanks to Ahmed Rashids analysis of the manoeuvrings of companies and governments, oil executives now have an up-to-date bible. and those interested in the new Turkic republics can get a sense of where these mysterious entities may be heading.

Michael Church, Independent

the book they are all reading

The Guardian

[An] excellent study which... has now sold more than 750,000 copies in [22] languages.

Financial Times

It took our political classes an unconscionable time to wake up to the importance of Ahmed Rashids definitive study of the Taliban. The book has been a phenomenal success.

The Independent

a chilling and masterly study of the Taliban. Times Literary Supplement It is the contention of Mr. Rashids very capable book on the Taliban that the outside world ignores Afghanistan at its peril.

James Buchan, Evening Standard

[Taliban] is said to have had a deep influence on Tony Blairs current thinking. It has also become the focus of intensive diplomatic scrutiny as US policy makers scramble to formulate plans for a stable regime to succeed the Taliban.

Timur Moon, Sunday Express

The most important book of the year

Bianca Jagger A Good Read, BBC Radio 4

It is a seminal work which took 21 years to research and write... now Tony Blair has a well-thumbed copy, and it has been cited in public by Joschka Fisher, the German foreign minister.

Cameron Simpson, The Herald

This is a fine book erudite, concise, surefooted, packed with information and insightful, easy to read.

Dilip Hiro, Middle East International

His new book on the Taliban will be required reading not only for specialists, but for anyone who wishes to learn how the wider world contributed to the emergence of a parish regime from the wreckage of Afghans courageous struggle against the armed forces of the Soviet Union.

William Maley, The World Today

Ahmed Rashid is to be complimented for this factual, readable and thought provoking work

Asian News

New paperback edition first published in 2010 and reprinted 2010, 2011 by
I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd
6 Salem Road, London W2 4BU
175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010
www.ibtauris.com

First published in 2000 by I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd
Reprinted in 2000, 2001 (four times)
Revised editions published in 2002 and 2008

Copyright Ahmed Rashid, 2000, 2001, 2008, 2010

The right of Ahmed Rashid to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part therof, may not be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

ISBN 978 1 84885 446 8
eISBN 978 0 85773 051 0

A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library

This edition typeset by Q3 Bookwork, Loughborough, Leicestershire.

For my mother,
what I have seen she taught me to see.
I hope I have honoured it.
And for Angeles.

I find it extremely humbling that in this era of consumerism and short memories my book on the Taliban has been in print since it was first published in 2000, a real rarity in todays publishing world. The book has been translated into 26 languages that I know about and new pirated translations are constantly emerging. I recently saw an Arabic edition that was published in Syria, and there are at least three Persian translations in circulation.

In the English language about 1.5 million copies have been sold, and I dont know how many have sold in other languages, but it has been a best seller in countries as far removed from Islamic extremism as Brazil, Poland and Japan. I am still being asked to sign dog-eared copies of the book that have been through many hands.

With the revived interest and concern about the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan and Pakistan, I expect that this new edition will first land in the hands of the new generation of journalists covering the region. It will be read by officials and diplomats who were still at college on 11 September 2001 and, I hope, by new generations of the public. Demand for the book has been kept alive by students, soldiers, academics, government officials and the man and woman on the street by every kind of reader, young and old, from every stratum of society. It is a tribute to my readers that my publishers have found it necessary and worthwhile to issue this updated version of Taliban.

This book is the last item that is packed into the rucksacks of soldiers from many US, British and NATO army units before they are transferred to Afghanistan, and every soldier not just the officers is expected to read it. Every incoming freshman at a prominent university in a northern US state is obliged to read it and write an essay on it before the start of regular classes. And it is a course book at hundreds of universities worldwide. Many students say that this was the first book they read that was not a thriller.

As a result of the book I have been asked to lecture around the world. With the Taliban upsurge in Pakistan, a new generation of Pakistani students who have just read the book ask me to come and run seminars at their universities, even though their teachers do not all approve. The various pirated editions published in Afghan languages seem to have been read by every Afghan who is remotely literate. Muslim women, in particular, have been drawn to this book, perhaps because of what it tells them about the suffering of women in an extremist society.