Yale University Press NEW HAVEN & 9 780300"089028 - Sito Mistero

Vi ~ CONTENTSChapter 8A Vanished Gender Women, Children and Taliban CultureChapter 9High on Heroin: Drugs and the Taliban EconomyChapter 10Global Jihad: The Arab-Afghans and Osama Bin LadenPart 3: The New Great GameChapter 11Dictators and Oil Barons: The Taliban and Central Asia,Russia, Turkey and IsraelChapter 12Romancing the Taliban 1: The Battle for Pipelines1994-96Chapter 13Romancing the Taliban 2: The Battle for Pipelines1997-99 - The USA and the TalibanChapter 14Master or Victim: Pakistan's Afghan WarChapter 15Shia and Sunni: Iran and Saudi ArabiaChapter 16Conclusion: The Future of AfghanistanAppendicesNotesIndex105117128143157170183196207217248266rPREFACEANDACKNOWLEDGEMENTSThis book has been 21 years in the writing - about as long as I havecovered Afghanistan as a reporter. The war in Afghanistan has taken outa good chunk of my life even though as a Pakistani journalist there wasenough going on at home to report on and later there was Central Asiaand the collapse of the Soviet Union to cover.Why Afghanistan? Anyone who has been touched by an Afghan orvisited the country in peace or in war, will understand when I say thecountry and the people are amongst the most extraordinary on earth. TheAfghans have also been affected by one of the greatest tragedies of thiscentury - the longest running civil war in this era which has broughtuntold misery.Their story and their character involve immense contradictions. Brave,magnificent, honourable, generous, hospitable, gracious, handsome,Afghan men and women can also be devious, mean and bloody-minded.Over the centuries, trying to understand the Afghans and their countrywas turned into a fine art and a game of power politics by the Persians,the Mongols, the British, the Soviets and most recently the Pakistanis.But no outsider has ever conquered them or claimed their soul. Only theAfghans could have been capable of keeping two empires - Britain andthe Soviet Union - at bay in this century. But in the last 21 years ofconflict they have paid an enormous price - over 1.5 million dead andthe total destruction of their country.For me, luck has also played a role in my relationship with Afghanistan.Many times I just happened to be at the right place at the right time. Iwatched as army tanks blasted their way into the Kabul palace of Presid'ent Mohammed Daud in 1978, a coup that was to set off Afghanistan's