My Life with the Taliban

Author: Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef
Publisher: Hurst & Company Limited
ISBN: 1849041520
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 382

Book Description
Abdul Zaeef describes growing up in poverty in rural Kandahar province, which he fled for Pakistan after the Russian invasion of 1979. Zaeef joined the jihad in 1983, was seriously wounded in several encounters and met many leading figures of the resistance, including the current Taliban head, Mullah Mohammad Omar. Disgusted by the lawlessness that ensued after the Soviet withdrawal, Zaeef was one among the former mujahidin who were closely involved in the emergence of the Taliban, in 1994. He then details his Taliban career, including negotiations with Ahmed Shah Massoud and role as ambassador to Pakistan during 9/11. In early 2002 Zaeef was handed over to American forces in Islamabad and spent four and a half years in prison in Bagram and Guantanamo before being released without charge. My Life with the Taliban offers insights into the Pashtun village communities that are the Taliban's bedrock and helps to explain what drives men like Zaeef to take up arms against the foreigners who are foolish enough to invade his homeland.

The Taliban Reader

Author: Alex Strick van Linschoten
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190934832
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 572

Book Description
Who are the Taliban? Are they a militant movement? Are they religious scholars? The fact that these and other questions are still raised with frequency is testimony to the way the movement has been studied, often at arm's length and with scant use of primary sources. The Taliban Reader forges a new path, bringing together an extensive range of largely unseen sources in a guide to the Afghan Islamist movement from a unique insider perspective. Ideal for students, journalists and scholars alike, this book is the result of an unprecedented, decade-long effort to encourage the emergence of participant-centered accounts of Afghan history. This ground-breaking collection, ranging from news articles and opinion pieces to online publications and poems transcribed by hand in the field, sets the stage for a recalibration of how we understand and study the Afghan Taliban. It challenges researchers to forge new norms in the documentation of conflict and provides insight into the future trajectory of political Islamism in South Asia and the Middle East.

An Enemy We Created

Author: Alex Strick van Linschoten
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199927316
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 549

Book Description
Originally published: [London]: C. Hurst & Co., 2011.

American Taliban

Author: Markos Moulitsas Zúniga
Publisher: Polipoint Press
ISBN: 9781936227020
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
America's main international enemy-Islamic radicalism-favors theocracy, curtails civil liberties, embraces torture, represses women, reviles homosexuality, subverts science and education, and reveres force over diplomacy. Markos Moulitsas shows how the American right shares those very same traits. He argues that our domestic jihadists are a greater threat to American democracy than any Islamic terrorist. Book jacket.

The Taliban and the Crisis of Afghanistan

Author: Robert D. Crews
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674030028
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 443

Book Description
[This book] explores ... how has a seemingly anachronistic band of religious zealots managed to retain a tenacious foothold in the struggle for Afghanistan's future ... [It] investigates ... questions relating to the character of the Taliban, its evolution over time, and its capacity to affect the future of the region.--Dust jacket.

In the Hands of the Taliban

Author: Yvonne Ridley
Publisher: Robson
ISBN: 1909396702
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 199

Book Description
Yvonne Ridley's terrifying 10 day detainment by the Taliban regime in Afghanistan struck a chord that continues to resonate around the world. At a time when the world was plunged into a state of unprecedented chaos and uncertainty following the terrorist atrocities in the US, Yvonne faced the ordeal of her life. Captured by the Taliban as she attempted to cross the Afghan border to report on the outbreak of war for the Sunday Express, Yvonne found her life hanging in the balance in the hands of the most reviled regime in the world. For Yvonne, an unexpected survival instinct kicked in that saw her face her captors not with fear, but with anger. Her courage and gutsiness, and that of her family, prompted the Taliban to release her, glad to be rid of such a so-called 'difficult' woman. This is Yvonne's full, true story. From her capture, to the ordeal she endured at the hands of the Taliban, to her eventual release; she offers a unique perspective into a way of life that remains a mystery to many. The friendships she formed with her fellow hostages, her feelings about her captors and their beliefs, and her discoveries -- many of which surprised and baffled her -- are all exclusively revealed in detail. Yvonne's story is a truly compelling and inspirational read.

The Taliban at War

Author: Antonio Giustozzi
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0190092394
Category : Afghanistan
Languages : en
Pages : 390

Book Description
Introduction --The collapse of the Emirate and the early regrouping, 2002-4 --The apogeum of the Quetta Shura, 2005-9 --The emergence of alternative centres of power to Quetta --The crisis of the Quetta Shura 2009-13 --The Taliban's tactical adaptation --Organisational adaptation --The troubled comeback of the Quetta Shura 2014 --Conclusion.The impossible centralisation of an anti-centralist movement --Epilogue.

The Taliban Revival

Author: Hassan Abbas
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300183690
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 299

Book Description
In autumn 2001, U.S. and NATO troops were deployed to Afghanistan to unseat the Taliban rulers, repressive Islamic fundamentalists who had lent active support to Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda jihadists. The NATO forces defeated and dismantled the Taliban government, scattering its remnants across the country. But despite a more than decade-long attempt to eradicate them, the Taliban endured—regrouping and reestablishing themselves as a significant insurgent movement. Gradually they have regained control of large portions of Afghanistan even as U.S. troops are preparing to depart from the region. In his authoritative and highly readable account, author Hassan Abbas examines how the Taliban not only survived but adapted to their situation in order to regain power and political advantage. Abbas traces the roots of religious extremism in the area and analyzes the Taliban’s support base within Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas. In addition, he explores the roles that Western policies and military decision making—not to mention corruption and incompetence in Kabul—have played in enabling the Taliban’s return to power.

Pious Peripheries

Author: Sonia Ahsan-Tirmizi
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 1503614727
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 303

Book Description
The Taliban made piety a business of the state, and thereby intervened in the daily lives and social interactions of Afghan women. Pious Peripheries examines women's resistance through groundbreaking fieldwork at a women's shelter in Kabul, home to runaway wives, daughters, mothers, and sisters of the Taliban. Whether running to seek marriage or divorce, enduring or escaping abuse, or even accused of singing sexually explicit songs in public, "promiscuous" women challenge the status quo—and once marked as promiscuous, women have few resources. This book provides a window into the everyday struggles of Afghan women as they develop new ways to challenge historical patriarchal practices. Sonia Ahsan-Tirmizi explores how women negotiate gendered power mechanisms, notably those of Islam and Pashtunwali. Sometimes defined as an honor code, Pashtunwali is a discursive and material practice that women embody through praying, fasting, oral and written poetry, and participation in rituals of hospitality and refuge. In taking ownership of Pashtunwali and Islamic knowledge, in both textual and oral forms, women create a new supportive community, finding friendship and solidarity in the margins of Afghan society. So doing, these women redefine the meanings of equality, honor, piety, and promiscuity in Afghanistan.

Blindsided by the Taliban

Author: Carmen Gentile
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1510729704
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 264

Book Description
I turn to see a rocket-propelled grenade screaming toward me. The ordnance strikes me in the side of the head, instantly blinding me in one eye and crushing the right side of my face. On September 9, 2010, while embedded with an Army unit and talking with locals in a small village in eastern Afghanistan, journalist Carmen Gentile was struck in the face by a rocket propelled grenade. Inexplicably, the grenade did not explode and Gentile survived, albeit with the right side of his face shattered and blinded in one eye. Making matters worse, his engagement was on the ropes and his fiancée absent from his bedside. Blindsided by the Taliban chronicles the author’s numerous missteps and shortcomings while coming to terms with injury and a lost love. Inventive and unprecedented surgeries would ultimately save Gentile’s face and eyesight, but the depression and trauma that followed his physical and emotional injuries proved a much harder recovery. Ultimately, Gentile would find that returning to the front lines and continuing the work he loved was the only way to become whole again. As only he can, Gentile recounts the physical and mental recovery which included staring only at the ground for a month, a battle with opiate-induced constipation and a history of drug addiction, attacks by Taliban assassins born of post-traumatic stress, the Jedi-like powers of General David Petraeus, and finding normalcy under falling mortars in an Afghan valley. The result is an unapologetic, self-deprecating, occasionally cringe-worthy, and always candid account of loss and redemption in the face of the self-doubt common to us all. Blindsided by the Taliban also features the author’s photos from the field that depict the realities of life in Afghanistan for soldiers and civilians alike. #KissedbytheTaliban