Ahmed Rashid - Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia, Second Edition

Praise for the First Edition

The standard work in English on the Taliban.

Christopher de Bellaigue, New York Review of Books

Rashid spent 21 years compiling the data and interpretive materials in this absorbing and disquieting book. As the world enters an ominous stage of history, Ahmed Rashid's book can serve as an excellent primer, guide book and briefng of what the future may hold.

Arnold Ages, Chicago Jewish Star

A brilliant and absorbing explanation of the radical Islamic movement and Afghanistan's wretched situation, Taliban became required reading not just for journalists, but for the world's senior politicians.

Alex Spillius, Daily Telegraph

An extensively researched analysis by a noted journalist.

A fascinating survey.

Joshua Sinai, Journal of Homeland Security

Taliban provides an important perspective untainted by excessive emotion or jingoism. Rashid's is an exceptional book that sorts out a multitude of questions for the nonCentral Asian specialist trying to make sense of current headlines. Rashid's acute foresight produced a book thatif taken seriously by U.S. policymakers at the time it was first published might have helped prevent a history-altering catastrophe.

Middle East Insight

[Rashid is] Pakistan's best and bravest reporter. Christopher Hitchens, Vanity Fair

This is a fine bookerudite, concise, sure-footed, packed with information and insight, easy to read. On each of the three major interrelated themes covered herethe history of the Taliban and the internal politics of Afghanistan; Islam and the Taliban; the new Great Game of oil and gas in Central Asia the author is illuminating and thorough.

Dilip Hiro, Middle East International

[A] supremely insightful book about Afghanistan's Taliban regime. Rashid bases his account on detailed reporting and travel throughout Afghanistan and interviews with most of the Taliban's elusive top leadership. As a narrative, it is gripping. Rashid's book is superbly reported, a window into a world that remains largely closed to American eyes.

Shankar Vedantam, Philadelphia Inquirer

[A] thorough, authoritative exegesis.

Peter Bergen, Washington Post Book World

Rashid marshals the vast amount of information he has accumulated over decades of covering the area into a long, sad story and tells it with finesse. His book is a gripping account of one of the horror stories of postCold War politics.

Jonathan Groner, Salon.com

A brilliant work, engrossing and wholly convincing.

Neville Maxwell, World Affairs

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

Patrick Seale, Sunday Times

Taliban

Militant Islam,
Oil and Fundamentalism
in Central Asia

SECOND EDITION

Ahmed Rashid

Yale

UNIVERSITY PRESS

New Haven and London

Published in the United Kingdom by I. B. Tauris & Co., Ltd., and in the United States by Yale University Press.

First edition published as a Yale Nota Bene book in 2001.

Copyright 2000 by Ahmed Rashid.

Second edition copyright 2010 by Ahmed Rashid.

All rights reserved.

This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publishers.

Printed in the United States of America.

ISBN 978-0-300-16368-1 (pbk.)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2009938249

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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

Chapter 1
Kandahar 1994: The Origins of the Taliban

Chapter 2
Herat 1995: God's Invincible Soldiers

Chapter 3
Kabul 1996: Commander of the Faithful

Chapter 4
Mazar-e-Sharif 1997: Massacre in the North

Chapter 5
Bamiyan 1998-99: The Never-Ending War

Chapter 6
Challenging Islam: The New-Style Fundamentalism of the Taliban

Chapter 7
Secret Society: The Taliban's Political and Military Organization

Chapter 8
A Vanished Gender: Women, Children and Taliban Culture

Chapter 9
High on Heroin: Drugs and the Taliban Economy

Chapter 10
Global Jihad: The Arab-Afghans and Osama Bin Laden

Chapter 11
Dictators and Oil Barons: The Taliban and Central Asia, Russia, Turkey and Israel

Chapter 12
Romancing the Taliban 1: The Battle for Pipelines 1994-96

Chapter 13
Romancing the Taliban 2: The Battle for Pipelines 1997-99 The USA and the Taliban

Chapter 14
Master or Victim: Pakistan's Afghan War

Chapter 15
Shia Versus Sunni: Iran and Saudi Arabia

Chapter 16
Conclusion: The Future of Afghanistan

Chapter 17
The Taliban Resurgent 2000-2009

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 today's 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 don't 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.