Taliban

Preface and Introduction to the Third Edition
Preface and Acknowledgements
Maps
Introduction: Afghanistan's Holy Warriors

Part 1: History of the Taliban Movement
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

Part 2: Islam and the Taliban
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

Part 3: The New Great Game
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

Appendices
Notes

[Rashid is] Pakistan's best and bravest reporter.
A must read.
[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.
Rashid's densely detailed reportage portrays a country in ruins and the people who seek to control it. . . . Anyone contemplating new adventures in Afghanistan-whether to save its women from persecution, rescue the state from further fragmentation or save themselves from terrorist backlash-might first consult Rashid's book.
The standard work in English on the Taliban.
[A] thorough, authoritative exegesis.
The author describes the insights he has gained, through personal experience of Afghanistan over the past decade, into the secretive and bizarre Taliban leadership.
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.
The first credible account of the rise to power of the Taliban.
Rashid has a feel for the characters in this imbroglio, who are as outlandish as any from the old Great Game.
the book they are all reading.
[An] excellent study
It took our political classes an unconscionable time to wake up to the importance of Ahmed Rashid's definitive study of the Taliban. The book has been a phenomenal success.
a chilling and masterly study of the Taliban.
It is the contention of Mr. Rashid's very capable book on the Taliban that the outside world ignores Afghanistan at its peril
An excellent political and historical account of the movement's rise to power.
Ahmed Rashid's 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.
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.
This is a riveting, balanced and well-informed book.
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.
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.
Thanks to Ahmed Rashid's 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.
[Taliban] is said to have had a deep influence on Tony Blair's 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.
The most important book of the year.
This is a fine book - erudite, concise, surefooted, packed with information and insightful, easy to read.
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.

[A] valuable and informative work.
Ahmed Rashid is to be complimented for this factual, readable and thought provoking work.
A fabulous piece of journalism.
The best book on the Taliban.
Virtually the only informed work on the men who, since 1994, have ruled almost all of Afghanistan. . . . [An] indispensable book.