The Afghanistan File

Bitlibro

Lingvo: English

Eldonita de Medina Publishing.

(1 recenzo)

The Afghanistan File, written by the former head of Saudi Arabian Intelligence, tells the story of his department’s involvement in Afghanistan, from the time of the Soviet invasion in 1979 to the attacks on September 11, 2001. It begins with the backing given by Saudi Arabia to the Mujahideen in their fight against the Soviet occupation, and moves on to the fruitless initiatives to broker peace among the Mujahideen factions after the Soviet withdrawal, the rise to power of the Taliban and the shelter the Taliban gave to Osama Bin Laden.

The extraordinary difficulties that Saudi Arabia and its allies faced in dealing with the Mujahideen are a central feature of the book. Prince Turki found them magnificently brave, but exasperating. On one occasion, in trying to arrange peace among them, he got permission from King Fahd to open the Kaaba in Makkah, and had the leaders go inside, where …

The Afghanistan File, written by the former head of Saudi Arabian Intelligence, tells the story of his department’s involvement in Afghanistan, from the time of the Soviet invasion in 1979 to the attacks on September 11, 2001. It begins with the backing given by Saudi Arabia to the Mujahideen in their fight against the Soviet occupation, and moves on to the fruitless initiatives to broker peace among the Mujahideen factions after the Soviet withdrawal, the rise to power of the Taliban and the shelter the Taliban gave to Osama Bin Laden.

The extraordinary difficulties that Saudi Arabia and its allies faced in dealing with the Mujahideen are a central feature of the book. Prince Turki found them magnificently brave, but exasperating. On one occasion, in trying to arrange peace among them, he got permission from King Fahd to open the Kaaba in Makkah, and had the leaders go inside, where they were overcome with emotion and swore never to fight each other again. A few hours later on their way to Madinah, they almost came to blows on the bus.

Prince Turki’s account gives details of the Saudi attempts in the 1990s to bring its volunteers out of Afghanistan – with chequered success – and his negotiations with the Taliban for the surrender of Osama Bin Laden. The book includes a number of declassified Intelligence Department documents.

Prince Turki explains that the nihilistic, apparently pointless terrorism that has been seen in the Middle East in the last twenty years had its origins in Afghanistan with Osama Bin Laden’s deluded belief that he had helped defeat the Russians. There is no evidence that he ever fought them at all. Soon after the attacks on 9/11, Saudi Arabia discovered that it had a homegrown terrorist problem involving some of the returnees from Afghanistan. Many of the huge changes that have taken place in the Kingdom since have stemmed from the campaign to tackle this.

1 eldono

Stephanie Jane recenzis The Afghanistan File de Prince Turki AlFaisal Al Saud

Surprisingly readable

4 steloj

I saw that The Afghanistan File was available for review from NetGalley in the week recently when news reports announced the Taliban's retaking of Kabul so I found my reading influenced by a sense of an somehow inevitable cycle within the country.

I was pleasantly surprised by just how readable a book The Afghanistan File is. I don't have a political background, but I had no problem in following its diverse threads. Prince Turki obviously has a deep understanding of the late twentieth century history of this beleaguered nation and, writing in collaboration with Michael Field, he has produced a very accessible account of his quarter of a century's involvement in attempting to resolve its troubles. Having read novels and memoirs by a number of Afghan authors over the past few years, I had built up a somewhat confused picture of Afghanistan's military and political progression. The Afghanistan File clarified …

I saw that The Afghanistan File was available for review from NetGalley in the week recently when news reports announced the Taliban's retaking of Kabul so I found my reading influenced by a sense of an somehow inevitable cycle within the country.

I was pleasantly surprised by just how readable a book The Afghanistan File is. I don't have a political background, but I had no problem in following its diverse threads. Prince Turki obviously has a deep understanding of the late twentieth century history of this beleaguered nation and, writing in collaboration with Michael Field, he has produced a very accessible account of his quarter of a century's involvement in attempting to resolve its troubles. Having read novels and memoirs by a number of Afghan authors over the past few years, I had built up a somewhat confused picture of Afghanistan's military and political progression. The Afghanistan File clarified these impressions while also giving me a wide-ranging overview of the different factions both within Afghanistan itself and across the involved international community. Prince Turki takes time to describe nuances of policy, context and individual characters so his detailed narrative makes a lot more sense than the usual oversimplified Western reports. I highly recommend The Afghanistan File for anyone interested in Middle Eastern affairs, the aftermath of colonialism, and the sociological causes of present-day terrorist ideologies.

Temoj

History
Afghanistan