Books

Koran, Kalashnikov and Laptop: The Neo-Taliban Insurgency in Afghanistan 2002-2007

Announcements of an impending victory over the Taliban have been repeated ad nauseam since the Allied invasion of Afghanistan in 2002, particularly after the Presidential elections of 2004, which were said to have marked the ‘moral and psychological defeat of the Taliban’. In moments of triumphalism, some commentators claimed that ‘reconstruction and development’ had won over the population, despite much criticism of the meagre distribution of aid, the lack of ‘nation-building’ and corruption among Kabul’s élite. In March 2006, both Afghan and American officials were still claiming, just before a series of particularly ferocious clashes, that ‘the Taliban are no longer able to fight large battles’. Later that year, the mood in the mass media had turned to one of defeatism, even of impending catastrophe. In reality, as early as 2003-5 there was a growing body of evidence that cast doubt on the official interpretation of the conflict. Rather than there having been a ‘2006 surprise’, Giustozzi argues that the Neo- Taliban insurgency had put down strong roots in Afghanistan as early as 2003, a phenomenon he investigates in this timely and thought-provoking book.

Other Books

A Thousand Splendid Suns (2007)
An Unexpected Light: Travels in Afghanistan (2001)
Afghan Buzkashi: Power Games and Gamesmen (2000)
Afghanistan: A Companion and Guide (2005)
Afghanistan: A Modern History (2005)
Afghanistan Aid, Armies & Empires (2009)
Afghanistan: From Holy War to Civil War (1995)
Afghanistan: Hidden Treasures from the National Museum, Kabul (2008)
Afghanistan: Mullah, Marx and Mujahid (2000)
Decoding the New Taliban: Insights from the Afghan Field (2009)
Earth and Ashes (2003)
Empires of Mud: Wars and Warlords in Afghanistan (2009)
Encyclopaedia of Afghanistan (2002)
Fragmentation of Afghanistan (2002)
Fundamentalism Reborn? Afghanistan and the Taliban (1998)
Koran, Kalashnikov and Laptop: The Neo-Taliban Insurgency in Afghanistan 2002-2007 (2007)
Meena: Heroine of Afghanistan (2004)
Modern Afghanistan (2004)
Monuments of Afghanistan (2008)
Organisations at War in Afghanistan and Beyond (2010)
Revolution Unending: Afghanistan, 1979 to the Present (2005)
The Afghanistan Wars (2009)
The Bookseller of Kabul (2004)
The Kite Runner (2003)
The Patience Stone (2010)
The Places in Between (2004)
The Road to Oxiana (1937)
The Sewing Circles of Herat: A Personal Voyage Through Afghanistan (2002)
The Swallows of Kabul (2005)
West of Kabul, East of New York: An Afghan American Story (2002)