This is the autobiography of Mullah 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 mujahedeen 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 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 Guantánamo) 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.
My Life with the Taliban is fully footnoted for easy reference, and includes maps, a glossary and a timeline. Professor Barnett Rubin (New York University, USA) has written a foreword introducing Mullah Zaeef.
| Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef was the Taliban’s ambassador to Pakistan in 2001 and one of the most well-known faces of the movement following the 9-11 attacks.
Born in southern Afghanistan in 1968, he played a role in many of the historical events of his lifetime: as mujahed in the 1980s war against the Soviets, to administrative positions within the Taliban movement, to imprisonment in Guantánamo jail, 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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'Highly significant...will be widely read by specialists and attract general interest. It will greatly appeal to those wanting an Islamist counter to orthodox accounts of the rise and fall of the Taliban.'
- Michael Semple, former EU representative in Afghanistan
'Roberts explores this outcome with a masterly sense of how much detail is needed and how the often impenetrable tangle of Balkan history can be made accessible and readable' - Robert Levgold, Foreign Affairs
'a very interesting memoir. ... Zaeef’s account is, to my knowledge, the first and only memoir penned by an important figure in the Taliban movement.' insurance.'
—Professor Robert Crews, Stanford University
'an incredibly important book. By revealing the inner workings of the Taliban from the early days of the movement, Zaeef challenges the accepted wisdom about the insurgency now facing international troops. … If your government sends soldiers to Afghanistan, you must read this.'
—Graeme Smith, Globe & Mail Kandahar Correspondent 2005-9
‘The entire world wants to understand the Taliban these days, it seems, as the war in Afghanistan becomes the topic of the moment. Precious few people can tell the inside story of the shadowy movement, however, which makes Mullah Zaeef's autobiography an incredibly important book. By revealing the inner workings of the Taliban from the early days of the movement, Zaeef challenges the accepted wisdom about the insurgency now facing international troops. By the time you're finished reading, you might not sympathize with the Taliban - but you will know them as people, not monsters. If your government sends soldiers to Afghanistan, you must read this.’
—Graeme Smith, Globe & Mail Kandahar Correspondent 2005-9
‘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
