Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef was the Taliban Ambassador to Pakistan during 9/11. He was subsequently imprisoned in Guantanamo before being released without charge. This is his story. Alex Strick van Linschoten and Felix Kuehn are researchers and writers permanently based in Kandahar. In 2006 they founded AfghanWire.com, an organisation and website that pursues awareness of Afghani issues and opinions largely unrecognised by the international media.
'Originally published in Pashto, the language of the Pashtuns, the
book has been beautifully translated and extensively edited for
easier understanding by Alex Strick van Linschoten and Feliz Kuehn,
two researchers who live in Kandahar, the birthplace of the
Taliban... Zaeef says he does not believe in al-Qaeda, but speaks
as an Afghan patriot with strong Islamist leanings toward the
Taliban. Afghanistan, he writes, is a family home in which we all
have the right to live...without discrimination and while keeping
our values. No one has the right to take this away from us." Can
Afghanistan ever be a peaceful home for all Afghans? They certainly
deserve it.'
*Ahmed Rashid in The New York Review of Books*
'Contains many sources of fascination, but none are more timely
than the author's account of his high-level relations with
Pakistani intelligence.'-The New Yorker 'Spies, generals and
ambassadors will pounce on this book, poring over its pages for
clues to a way out of the Afghan morass.' -Sunday Telegraph 'The
first book from inside the Taliban could not be better timed. Abdul
Salam Zaeef was one of the founding members of the group and held
senior positions within it, ending up as ambassador to
Pakistan.'
*Sunday Times*
'A counternarrative to much of what has been written about
Afghanistan since 1979... Zaeef offers a particularly interesting
discussion of the Taliban's origins and the group's effectiveness
in working with locals.'-Foreign Affairs 'Not, perhaps, since the
Khmer Rouge, has a movement emerged on the world stage about which
so much is opaque to outsiders as the Taliban. Much of that opacity
is, of course, intentional. Into this murk Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef
shines some much-needed light with his fascinating memoir as a
Taliban insider. By virtue of his role as the Taliban ambassador to
Pakistan, Zaeef was privy to the Taliban's decision making in the
run up to 9/11 and thereafter. And his story has much to say about
the nature of the gathering insurgency that NATO and the United
States presently face. If President Obama wanted a window into the
thinking of the Taliban today he couldn't do better than this.'
*Peter Bergen, author of Holy War, Inc. and The Osama bin Laden I
Know*
'The only detailed insider account of the Taliban is a memoir by
Abdul Salam Zaeef, the movement's former ambassador to Pakistan.
Zaeef is no spokesman for Mullah Omar and the Quetta shura. But My
Life with the Taliban usefully shows that its leaders saw
themselves as nationalists, reformers and liberators rather than
Islamist ideologues.'
*Jonathan Steele, London Review of Books*
'The entire world wants to understand the Taliban these days, it
seems, as the war in Afghanistan becomes the topic of the moment.
Precious few people can tell the inside story of the shadowy
movement, however, which makes Zaeef's autobiography an incredibly
important book. If your government sends soldiers to Afghanistan,
you must read this. By revealing the inner workings of the Taliban
from the early days of the movement, Zaeef challenges the accepted
wisdom about the insurgency now facing international troops. By the
time you're finished reading, you might not sympathize with the
Taliban -- but you will know them as people, not monsters.'
*A-.A. Graeme Smith, Emmy Award-winning Afghanistan -based reporter
for the Globe and Mail, Toronto*
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