Ghost Wars
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As the source notes indicate, I also sought to connect my original interviews with other previously published journalism and scholarship on Afghanistan, the CIA, and terrorism in South Asia. My colleague Pam Constable wrote early and intrepidly about the Taliban. So did John Burns and Barry Bearak of The New York Times. Vernon Loeb of the Post wrote extensively about bin Laden prior to September 11; I have drawn from his work. Peter Finn broke extensive ground about al Qaeda more recently. I have relied also on the early, in-depth journalism of Douglas Frantz, James Risen, and Judith Miller of the Times about bin Laden, U.S. counterterrorism policy, and aspects of Pakistani and Saudi intelligence. The Wall Street Journal produced major breakthroughs from their investigations into the life of Ayman al-Zawahiri. I am also grateful to the team at the Los Angeles Times for their matchless biographical work on the members of the Hamburg cell. Among American scholars, Barnett Rubin’s writing, especially The Fragmentation of Afghanistan, lays a very important foundation for anyone writing about Afghanistan’s post-1979 traumas. Ahmed Rashid’s book Taliban was not only a great feat of journalism, but an act of personal bravery. I have relied also on Olivier Roy’s enduring insights into Afghanistan and political Islam. I owe many other professional debts to previously published work; the notes provide a full accounting.
Thanks to Jean Cleary for finding me a room of my own. Thanks to Adam Holzman for his friendship, sounds, humor, and ideas.
From our first conversation shortly after September 11 to our last edit two years later, Ann Godoff supported this book’s highest possible ambitions and nurtured them at every turn. She is a great editor and a remarkable person. Her assistant at The Penguin Press, Meredith Blum, was a terrific correspondent and an encouraging partner. Rose Ann Ferrick’s meticulous, thoughtful work on the manuscript improved it immeasurably. Ryu Spaeth’s work on the bibliography and chapter notes, and his careful copyediting, also made a major contribution. As she has for nearly two decades now, Melanie Jackson, my literary agent, provided sound counsel throughout, steering us all through a few unusual bumps with confidence and skill.
Thanks above all to my family, especially to Alexandra, Emma, and Max for their love, tolerance, and encouragement.
About the Author
STEVE COLL is the managing editor of The Washington Post. He has been a reporter, foreign correspondent, and editor at the paper since 1985. He worked in Afghanistan and Pakistan while serving as the Post’s South Asia bureau chief between 1989 and 1992. Among his journalism awards is a Pulitzer Prize. His four previous books include On the Grand Trunk Road: A Journey into South Asia. He is married to the novelist Susan Coll.
Table of Contents
List of Maps
Principal Characters
PROLOGUE ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE
PART ONE BLOOD BROTHERS
1. “We’re Going to Die Here”
2. “Lenin Taught Us”
3. “Go Raise Hell”
4. “I Loved Osama”
5. “Don’t Make It Our War”
6. “Who Is This Massoud?”
7. “The Terrorists Will Own the World”
8. “Inshallah, You Will Know My Plans”
9. “We Won”
PART TWO THE ONE-EYED MAN WAS KING
10. “Serious Risks”
11. “A Rogue Elephant”
12. “We Are in Danger”
13. “A Friend of Your Enemy”
14. “Maintain a Prudent Distance”
15. “A New Generation”
16. “Slowly, Slowly Sucked into It”
17. “Dangling the Carrot”
18. “We Couldn’t Indict Him”
19. “We’re Keeping These Stingers”
20. “Does America Need the CIA?”
PART THREE THE DISTANT ENEMY
21. “You Are to Capture Him Alive”
22. “The Kingdom’s Interests”
23. “We Are at War”
24. “Let’s Just Blow the Thing Up”
25. “The Manson Family”
26. “That Unit Disappeared”
27. “You Crazy White Guys”
28. “Is There Any Policy?”
29. “Daring Me to Kill Them”
30. “What Face Will Omar Show to God?”
31. “Many Americans Are Going to Die”
32. “What an Unlucky Country”
Afterword
Notes
Bibliography
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Afghanistan
The Birth of Modern Saudi Arabia
Massoud at War, 1983–1985
Bin Laden’s Tarnak Farm
The CIA in the Panjshir, 1997–2000
PROLOGUE
1