Journal of South Asia Women Studies

On April 28 — just two days before the US blitz on Osama’s compound in Abbottabad— I interviewed Ahmed Rashid, the famous Pakistani journalist and bestselling author of Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia (2000) and Descent into Chaos (2008). Mr Rashid is based in Lahore but after graduating he spent ten years in Balochistan, the large Pakistan province bordering Iran to the west and Afghanistan to the north, in order to organize an uprising against the Pakistani military dictatorships of generals Ayub Khan and Yahya Khan (respectively the 2nd and the 3rd president of Pakistan, 1958-1969 and 1969-1971).

For over 20 years Rashid has been the correspondent for the British newspaper Daily Telegraph and the Far Eastern Economic Review. He currently writes for the The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and other newspapers and academic journals. He is regularly called as an expert for Central Asia, Pakistan and Afghanistan by the CNN and BBC World.

Mr Rashid’s book Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia offers an invaluable insight into the Islamist militia group, which at the time of publication was virtually unknown. The book has been translated into 22 languages and has sold some 1.5 million copies since the September 11, 2001 attacks, and it was extensively used by American analysts.