Download or read book Guardians of God written by Mona Kanwal Sheikh and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016-09-22 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is an account of the emergence and key events related to the origin and expansion of Pakistani Taliban since 2001, with a focus on the role of religion in their actions, policies and worldviews. The author brings to light rare insight into the ideological basis of Pakistani Taliban, drawing upon first-hand research comprising participant observation, interviews, content analysis of organizational literature and Talibani communications, such as recruitment videos, recorded speeches, leaflets and pamphlets, jihadi anthems and press releases to the local media. The book demonstrates how religion simultaneously appears as an object to be defended, as a threat, as the purpose of violence, as the source of rules and limitations on violent action and as the source of motivational imagery and myths. Going into an analysis of just what role religion plays in violent activities of this group and how does it do so, the author shows that Talibani narratives are both secular and religious at the same time, contradicting a clear-cut divide between religious and secular motivations for violence. The book advocates against extreme positions that accord religion either a primary or a negligent position in explaining the raison d’être of Pakistani Taliban. It makes a plea for more informed and empathetic approach instead of the purely militaristic stance towards extremism, which has only helped it grow in the past.
Download or read book My Life with the Taliban written by Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef and published by Hurst & Company Limited. This book was released on 2011-06-16 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Bucharest Diary written by Alfred H. Moses and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2018-07-17 with total page 438 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An insider's account of Romania's emergence from communism control In the 1970s American attorney Alfred H. Moses was approached on the streets of Bucharest by young Jews seeking help to emigrate to Israel. This became the author's mission until the communist regime fell in 1989. Before that Moses had met periodically with Romania's communist dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu, to persuade him to allow increased Jewish emigration. This experience deepened Moses's interest in Romania—an interest that culminated in his serving as U.S. ambassador to the country from 1994 to 1997 during the Clinton administration. The ambassador's time of service in Romania came just a few years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent collapse of communism in Eastern Europe. During this period Romania faced economic paralysis and was still buried in the rubble of communism. Over the next three years Moses helped nurture Romania's nascent democratic institutions, promoted privatization of Romania's economy, and shepherded Romania on the path toward full integration with Western institutions. Through frequent press conferences, speeches, and writings in the Romanian and Western press and in his meetings with Romanian officials at the highest level, he stated in plain language the steps Romania needed to take before it could be accepted in the West as a free and democratic country. Bucharest Diary: An American Ambassador's Journey is filled with firsthand stories, including colorful anecdotes, of the diplomacy, both public and private, that helped Romania recover from four decades of communist rule and, eventually, become a member of both NATO and the European Union. Romania still struggles today with the consequences of its history, but it has reached many of its post-communist goals, which Ambassador Moses championed at a crucial time. This book will be of special interest to readers of history and public affairs—in particular those interested in Jewish life under communist rule in Eastern Europe and how the United States and its Western partners helped rebuild an important country devastated by communism.
Download or read book Punjabi Taliban written by Mujāhid Ḥusain and published by Pentagon Security International. This book was released on 2012 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Translated from Urdu.
Download or read book The Taliban Shuffle written by Kim Barker and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2011-03-22 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A true-life Catch-22 set in the deeply dysfunctional countries of Afghanistan and Pakistan, by one of the region’s longest-serving correspondents. Kim Barker is not your typical, impassive foreign correspondent—she is candid, self-deprecating, laugh-out-loud funny. At first an awkward newbie in Afghanistan, she grows into a wisecracking, seasoned reporter with grave concerns about our ability to win hearts and minds in the region. In The Taliban Shuffle, Barker offers an insider’s account of the “forgotten war” in Afghanistan and Pakistan, chronicling the years after America’s initial routing of the Taliban, when we failed to finish the job. When Barker arrives in Kabul, foreign aid is at a record low, electricity is a pipe dream, and of the few remaining foreign troops, some aren’t allowed out after dark. Meanwhile, in the vacuum left by the U.S. and NATO, the Taliban is regrouping as the Afghan and Pakistani governments flounder. Barker watches Afghan police recruits make a travesty of practice drills and observes the disorienting turnover of diplomatic staff. She is pursued romantically by the former prime minister of Pakistan and sees adrenaline-fueled colleagues disappear into the clutches of the Taliban. And as her love for these hapless countries grows, her hopes for their stability and security fade. Swift, funny, and wholly original, The Taliban Shuffle unforgettably captures the absurdities and tragedies of life in a war zone.
Download or read book The Taliban Revival written by Hassan Abbas and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2014-06-24 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Pakistan on the Brink written by Ahmed Rashid and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2013-02-26 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An urgent, on-the-ground report from Pakistan—from the bestselling author of Descent Into Chaos and Taliban Ahmed Rashid, one of the world's leading experts on the social and political situations in Pakistan and Afghanistan, offers a highly anticipated update on the possibilities—and hazards—facing the United States after the death of Osama bin Laden and as Operation Enduring Freedom winds down. With the characteristic professionalism that has made him the preeminent independent journalist in Pakistan for three decades, Rashid asks the important questions and delivers informed insights about the future of U.S. relations with the troubled region. His most urgent book to date, Pakistan on the Brink is the third volume in a comprehensive series that is a call to action to our nation's leaders and an exposition of this conflict's impact on the security of the world.
Download or read book Pakistan Under Siege written by Madiha Afzal and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2018-01-02 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the last fifteen years, Pakistan has come to be defined exclusively in terms of its struggle with terror. But are ordinary Pakistanis extremists? And what explains how Pakistanis think? Much of the current work on extremism in Pakistan tends to study extremist trends in the country from a detached position—a top-down security perspective, that renders a one-dimensional picture of what is at its heart a complex, richly textured country of 200 million people. In this book, using rigorous analysis of survey data, in-depth interviews in schools and universities in Pakistan, historical narrative reporting, and her own intuitive understanding of the country, Madiha Afzal gives the full picture of Pakistan’s relationship with extremism. The author lays out Pakistanis’ own views on terrorist groups, on jihad, on religious minorities and non-Muslims, on America, and on their place in the world. The views are not radical at first glance, but are riddled with conspiracy theories. Afzal explains how the two pillars that define the Pakistani state—Islam and a paranoia about India—have led to a regressive form of Islamization in Pakistan’s narratives, laws, and curricula. These, in turn, have shaped its citizens’ attitudes. Afzal traces this outlook to Pakistan’s unique and tortured birth. She examines the rhetoric and the strategic actions of three actors in Pakistani politics—the military, the civilian governments, and the Islamist parties—and their relationships with militant groups. She shows how regressive Pakistani laws instituted in the 1980s worsened citizen attitudes and led to vigilante and mob violence. The author also explains that the educational regime has become a vital element in shaping citizens’ thinking. How many years one attends school, whether the school is public, private, or a madrassa, and what curricula is followed all affect Pakistanis’ attitudes about terrorism and the rest of the world. In the end, Afzal suggests how this beleaguered nation—one with seemingly insurmountable problems in governance and education—can change course.
Download or read book Terrorism in Pakistan written by N. Elahi and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2019-03-07 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, Pakistan has faced the threat of terrorism in different forms and shapes. Yet in recent years the threat has taken on a new dimension. After 9/11 the US campaign against Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan led to a surge in unrest and violence in Pakistan. Al-Qaeda gained a foothold in tribal regions of Pakistan via their local supporters, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), currently led by Mullah Fazlullah, who unleashed a new wave of terror across Pakistan. Since then, more than 60,000 Pakistanis have been killed as the result of TTP-orchestrated insurgency and terrorist attacks and Pakistan's society, economy and its international image have suffered at the hands of TTP and its affiliated groups. As a result of several military operations many TTP leaders have taken refuge in Afghanistan where they have joined hands with the terrorist group ISIS, the so-called Islamic State, or Daesh by its local name. Pakistan's nascent democratic set-up, in the form of the government of Nawaz Sharif, is struggling to curb this menace. This is the first book to cover all aspects of terrorism in Pakistan and to reveal the composition, ideology, approaches and strengths of TTP and its affiliates. It is essential reading for policy-makers, strategists, security experts and students to understand the intricate contours and dimensions of insurgency and terrorism within Pakistan.
Download or read book The Wrong Enemy written by Carlotta Gall and published by HMH. This book was released on 2014-04-08 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A journalist with deep knowledge of the region provides “an enthralling and largely firsthand account of the war in Afghanistan” (Financial Times). Few reporters know as much about Afghanistan as Carlotta Gall. She was there in the 1990s after the Russians were driven out. She witnessed the early flourishing of radical Islam, imported from abroad, which caused so much local suffering. She was there right after 9/11, when US special forces helped the Northern Alliance drive the Taliban out of the north and then the south, fighting pitched battles and causing their enemies to flee underground and into Pakistan. Gall knows just how much this war has cost the Afghan people—and just how much damage can be traced to Pakistan and its duplicitous government and intelligence forces. Combining searing personal accounts of battles and betrayals with moving portraits of the ordinary Afghans who were caught up in the conflict for more than a decade, The Wrong Enemy is a sweeping account of a war brought by American leaders against an enemy they barely understood and could not truly engage.
Download or read book The Troubled Triangle written by Zafar Iqbal Yousafzai and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2021-12-07 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a comprehensive analysis of the Taliban, and how it has affected post-9/11 U.S.-Pakistan relations. It analyzes the genesis of the Taliban, the rationale behind their emergence and how they consolidated their rule in Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001. It examines the U.S. policies towards the Taliban in the post 9/11 era and Pakistan’s role as an ally in their efforts towards dismantling Taliban rule in Afghanistan—from Obama’s ‘fight and talk’ policy to the Doha peace agreement in 2020. It also discusses the outcomes of the Global War on Terror (GWoT), as well as the Taliban’s response to the U.S.-led ISAF and NATO forces in Afghanistan. The volume brings into focus Pakistan’s policies vis-à-vis the Taliban following the start of GWoT and how it pushed the U.S.-Pakistan relations to its lowest ebb; and then its role in bringing the Taliban to the negotiating table which resulted in the U.S.-Taliban deal in Doha in February 2020. The author introduces a ‘new balance of threat’ theory and expands on its applicability through the Taliban case study. The book will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of U.S. foreign policy, international relations, peace and conflict studies, strategic studies, history, diplomatic studies and South Asian politics.
Download or read book I Am Malala written by Malala Yousafzai and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2013-10-08 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A MEMOIR BY THE YOUNGEST RECIPIENT OF THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE As seen on Netflix with David Letterman "I come from a country that was created at midnight. When I almost died it was just after midday." When the Taliban took control of the Swat Valley in Pakistan, one girl spoke out. Malala Yousafzai refused to be silenced and fought for her right to an education. On Tuesday, October 9, 2012, when she was fifteen, she almost paid the ultimate price. She was shot in the head at point-blank range while riding the bus home from school, and few expected her to survive. Instead, Malala's miraculous recovery has taken her on an extraordinary journey from a remote valley in northern Pakistan to the halls of the United Nations in New York. At sixteen, she became a global symbol of peaceful protest and the youngest nominee ever for the Nobel Peace Prize. I AM MALALA is the remarkable tale of a family uprooted by global terrorism, of the fight for girls' education, of a father who, himself a school owner, championed and encouraged his daughter to write and attend school, and of brave parents who have a fierce love for their daughter in a society that prizes sons. I AM MALALA will make you believe in the power of one person's voice to inspire change in the world.
Download or read book Descent Into Chaos written by Ahmed Rashid and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2008 with total page 548 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines how the failure of the nation building policies of the United States have contributed to increased instability in both Pakistan and Afghanistan, a result which represents the greatest threat to peace and security in the global community.
Download or read book U S Strategy for Pakistan and Afghanistan written by Richard Lee Armitage and published by Council on Foreign Relations. This book was released on 2010 with total page 83 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Council on Foreign Relations sponsors Independent Task Forces to assess issues of current and critical importance to U.S. foreign policy and provide policymakers with concrete judgments and recommendations. Diverse in backgrounds and perspectives, Task Force members aim to reach a meaningful consensus on policy through private and non-partisan deliberations. Once launched, Task Forces are independent of CFR and solely responsible for the content of their reports. Task Force members are asked to join a consensus signifying that they endorse "the general policy thrust and judgments reached by the group, though not necessarily every finding and recommendation." Each Task Force member also has the option of putting forward an additional or a dissenting view. Members' affiliations are listed for identification purposes only and do not imply institutional endorsement. Task Force observers participate in discussions, but are not asked to join the consensus. --Book Jacket.
Download or read book Taliban in Pakistan written by A. Manzar and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book is a focused area study of the emergence of the Taliban in Pakistan, with consequent repercussions for regional security. The book engages in profiling the Pakistani Taliban Warlords like Baitullah Mehsud (who has been categorised as more dangerous than Osama Bin Laden), Fazlullah (who has transformed a hitherto peaceful Pakistani area into a Taliban and Al-Qaeda haven) and Mangal Bagh etc. in minutiae and bringing their organisations, personal traits, terror tactics and links with terrorist organisations under extensive scrutiny. A detailed analysis of the widespread ideology of Deobandi and Salafi thought patterns throughout Pakistan's tribal areas is undertaken, along with the international and Pakistani responses to rise of the same. The impact of Talibanisation on society and its aftermaths are discussed, with a view to projecting future trends. The resurgence of the Taliban in Pakistan, their organisation centres, their ideological basis and seminaries from where they get their religious sanction are mapped out in meticulous detail, along with a detailed look at suicide terrorism in Pakistan, besides in depth analysis of the factors radicalising the Pakistani society. This is the first book of its kind which engages with the phenomenon of the emergence of the Taliban in Pakistan in such minute detail, and will prove invaluable to strategists and general readers alike about the subject.
Download or read book Deadly Embrace written by Bruce Riedel and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2012-02-24 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pakistan and America have been gripped together in a deadly embrace for decades. For half a century American presidents from both parties pursued narrow short-term interests in Pakistan. This myopia actually backfired in the long term, helping to destabilize the political landscape and radicalizing the population, setting the stage for the global jihad we face today. Bruce Riedel, one of America's foremost authorities on U.S. security and South Asia, sketches the history of U.S.-Pakistani relations from partitioning of the subcontinent in 1947 up through the present day. It is muddled story, meandering through periods of friendship and enmity. Riedel deftly interprets the tortuous path of relations between two very different nations that remain, in many ways, stuck with each other. The Preface to the paperback provides an inside account of the discovery of Osama bin Laden's Abbottabad hideout that led to the al Qaeda leader's demise. Accusations of Pakistani complicity in harboring bin Laden once again dramatized the ambivalence and distrust existing between two nations that purport to be allies. Riedel discusses what it all means for the war on terror and the future of U.S.- Pakistani relations. Praise for the hardcover edition of Deadly Embrace "Mr. Riedel, who has advised no fewer than four American presidents, knows power from the inside—something he is keen to share with the reader.... His book provides a useful account of the dysfunctional relationship between Pakistan and America." — The Economist "Bruce Riedel has produced an excellent volume that is both analytically sharp and cogently written. It will engage both specialists and the interested public. Essential reading."—Peter Bergen, author of Holy War, Inc. and The Osama bin Laden I Know "Riedel lucidly provides an overview of the last thirty years of Pakistan's internal politics, its relationship with the United States, as well as the various i
Download or read book Reconciliation in Afghanistan written by Michael Semple and published by US Institute of Peace Press. This book was released on 2009 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this timely and thorough volume, Michael Semple analyzes the rationale and effectiveness post-2001 attempts at reconciliation in Afghanistan. He explains the poor performance of these attempts and argues that rethinking is necessary if reconciliation is to help revive prospects for peace and stability in Afghanistan.
