Overview

"This is the autobiography of Abdul Salam Zaeef, a senior former member of the Taliban. His memoirs, translated from Pashto, are more than just a personal account of his extraordinary life. ""My Life with the Taliban"" offers a counter-narrative to the standard accounts of Afghanistan since 1979. Zaeef describes growing up in rural poverty in Kandahar province. Both of his parents died at an early age, and the Russian invasion of 1979 forced him to flee to Pakistan. He started fighting the jihad in 1983, during which time he was associated with many major figures in the anti-Soviet resistance, including the current Taliban head Mullah Mohammad Omar. After the war Zaeef returned to a quiet life in a small village in Kandahar, but chaos soon overwhelmed Afghanistan as factional fighting erupted after the Russians pulled out. Disgusted by the lawlessness that ensued, Zaeef was one among the former mujahidin who were closely involved in the discussions that led to the emergence of the Taliban, in 1994. Zaeef then details his Taliban career as civil servant and minister minister who negotiated with foreign oil companies as well as with Afghanistan's own resistance leader, Ahmed Shah Massoud. Zaeef was ambassador to Pakistan at the time of the 9/11 attacks, and his account discusses the strange 'phoney war' period before the US-led intervention toppled the Taliban. In early 2002 Zaeef was handed over to American forces in Pakistan, notwithstanding his diplomatic status, and spent four and a half years in prison (including several years in Guantanamo) before being released without having been tried or charged with any offence. ""My Life with the Taliban"" offers a personal and privileged insight into the rural Pashtun village communities that are the Taliban's bedrock. It helps to explain what drives men like Zaeef to take up arms against the foreigners who are foolish enough to invade his homeland."

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9781849040266

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Reviews

'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.A 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

Author Information

Born in southern Afghanistan in 1968, Abdul Salam Zaeef played a role in many of the historical events of his lifetime, from his role as mujahed in the 1980s war against the Soviets, to administrative positions within the Taliban movement, to imprisonment in Guantanamo, to a role of public advocacy and criticism of the US-backed Karzai government following his release in 2005. He lives in Kabul.

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