I Is for Infidel: From Holy War to Holy Terror, 18 years inside Afghanistan

217 Pages·2006·1.53 MB·English

by  Kathy Gannon

25.00 32.95
$ /$ Canada
(Continued from front flap)
A
world through Afghan eyes. She brings this fghanistan is one of the world’s poorest
Kathy Gannon
brilliant and affectionate insight to provide a countries, cradled by mountains to the
gripping portrait of a nation that was abused and ADVANCE PRAISE FOR I south and east, desert to the west, and the
idly discarded by the West, used as an incubator I is for Infidel fractious tribal lands to the north. For much of its
for religious extremism by its neighbors, and i history it has been a land visited only by people on
hugely, fatally misunderstood by almost everyone. s their way to somewhere else. Not, though, by Kathy
F or all the attention on Iraq, it is Afghanistan one must understand to I i s f or I n f i d e l Gannon. She arrived in 1986 with dreams of being

a foreign correspondent, expecting that she might
fully appreciate the global terrorist threat. No one has gotten deeper f
move on soon afterwards. She stayed eighteen
insidethepowerfulforcesshapingthatnationthanKathyGannon:With o
years, becoming in that time the most knowledge-
breathtaking courage and insight, she reports on the often surprising
r FROM HOLY WAR TO HOLY TERROR: able Western journalist to observe the cataclysms
roots of terrorism that now tragically make news every day."
that rocked the region–and after 2001 went on to

JUDY WOODRUFF, journalist I 18 YEARS INSIDE AFGHANISTAN convulse the world.
From the collapse of the Soviet occupation
n
to the years of anarchic tribalism, to the creation
f and rise of the Taliban, to the hijacking of power
i by al Qaeda, Gannon stayed with the story of
N o Western journalist knew Afghanistan under the Taliban better than
d Afghanistan and its people. She watched the
KATHY GANNON was the Associated Press Kathy Gannon. She guided so many of us through this fascinating land country go from being the battleground for a proxy
e
correspondent in Pakistan and Afghanistan during its most brutal era. She knew its beleaguered people and its superpower conflict to a forgotten backwater
from 1986-2005; she is currently the Iran ruthless leaders. She speaks with particular authority about l where vicious local politics ran unchecked and the
bureau chief designate. Born in Timmins, essential structure of the country decayed. With the
Afghanistan’s heartbreaking history."
Canada, she was the 2002 recipient of the collapse of respect for law—apart from the law of
K
ROBIN WRIGHT, journalist and author of Sacred Rage:
International Women’s Media Foundation a the gun—went due process, education, a public role
The Wrath of Militant Islam and The Last Great Revolution t
Courage in Journalism award and the recipient h for women, the economy, and the last vestiges of
y
of the Edward R. Murrow fellowship from interest from the international community. At the
G
the Council on Foreign Relations during $25.00/$32.95 Canada a end, Afghanistan had become so damaged and
2003-2004. Her work has been published in n vulnerable a country that it became the refuge for a
n
Foreign Affairsand the New Yorker. This is her ISBN 1-58648-312-9 o truly evil man whose designs would bring global
n
first book. ignominy and another round of superpower
conflict to its mountains and plains.
Throughout this time Gannon has been an
JACKETDESIGN:Ann Weinstock
JACKETPHOTO:Chris Hondros/Getty Images intimate observer whose personal friends
AUTHORPHOTO:Associated Press
throughout the country have allowed her to see the
(Continued on back flap)
WWW.PUBLICAFFAIRSBOOKS.COM
I Is for Infidel

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I Is for Infidel
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FROM HOLY WAR
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TO HOLY TERROR:
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18 YEARS INSIDE
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AFGHANISTAN
Kathy Gannon
PublicAffairs
New York
Copyright © 2005 by Catherine Gannon.
Published in the United States by PublicAffairs™,
a member of the Perseus Books Group.
All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever
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book design and composition by jenny dossin.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gannon, Kathy.
I is for infidel: from holy war to holy terror: 18 years inside Afghanistan /
Kathy Gannon.—1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN-13 978-1-58648-312-8
ISBN-10 1-58648-312-9
1. Afghanistan—History—Soviet Occupation, 1979–1989.
2. Afghanistan—History—1989–2001.
3. Afghanistan—History—2001–. I. Title.
DS371.2.G365 2005
958.104’5—dc22
2005048667
first edition
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
To my mother and my sister for their love
To the memory of my friend Kathy Evans
To my husband, Pasha,
who is the most wondrous of dreamers,
and who reminds me every day of
the possibilities of tomorrow

contents
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Map of Afghanistan viii
Cast of Characters ix
List of Photographs xi
prologue Friends or Foes xiii
chapter one The Way It Was 1
chapter two Inside the Taliban 21
chapter three The Beginning of the End 37
chapter four The Moderate Taliban 51
chapter five The Taliban Bloodied 67
chapter six The Last Days of the Taliban 83
chapter seven After the Taliban 109
chapter eight The Hidden Face of Pakistan’s Military 127
chapter nine Ties That Bind 149
epilogue Four Years Later 165
Acknowledgments 175
Index 179
map of afghanistan
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Map courtesy of Bowring Cartographic
cast of characters
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Mujahedeen (Warlord) Government 1992–6
(Supported by U.S.)
Rashid Dostum: allied first with communist, then with Mas-
sood,and then with Hekmatyar
Mohammed Fahim: interior minister who ordered Karzai ar-
rested
Jalaluddin Haqqani: key commander in mujahedeen govern-
ment
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar: prime minister who attacked Kabul
for four years
Hamid Karzai: deputy foreign minister
Maulvi Younis Khalis: education minister who dismissed ed-
ucation for girls as unnecessary, welcomed Osama bin Laden to
Afghanistan from Sudan
Ahmed Shah Massood: defense minister and ethnic Tajik who
ignored Karzai requests to bring ethnic Pashtuns into the gov-
ernment and to Kabul from the south and the east of the coun-
try, killed on Sept. 9, 2001 by Tunisian suicide bombers posing
as television journalists
Abdul Rasul Sayyaf: factional leader who controlled interior
ministry, whose soldiers committed atrocities, operated training
camps and welcomed Osama bin Laden to Afghanistan from Su-
dan