The Wrong Enemy

America in Afghanistan, 2001–2014

Carlotta Gall

• Publisher: Mariner Books
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN:
  9780544046696
• eBook ISBN:
  9780544045682
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Central Asian History
• Index: History

A journalist with deep knowledge of the region provides "an enthralling and largely firsthand account of the war in Afghanistan" ( Financial Times).
 
Few reporters know as much about Afghanistan as Carlotta Gall. She was there in the 1990s after the Russians were driven out. She witnessed the early flourishing of radical Islam, imported from abroad, which caused so much local suffering. She was there right after 9/11, when US special forces helped the Northern Alliance drive the Taliban out of the north and then the south, fighting pitched battles and causing their enemies to flee underground and into Pakistan. Gall knows just how much this war has cost the Afghan people—and just how much damage can be traced to Pakistan and its duplicitous government and intelligence forces.
 
Combining searing personal accounts of battles and betrayals with moving portraits of the ordinary Afghans who were caught up in the conflict for more than a decade, The Wrong Enemy is a sweeping account of a war brought by American leaders against an enemy they barely understood and could not truly engage.
 

Index

A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z

A

Abbas, Athar, 258

Abbasi, Zaheer ul-Islam, 20

Abbottabad, Pakistan

bin Laden raided in, 251–52, 256–58, 263

bin Laden’s safe house in, 242–49

bin Laden’s visitors in, 255–56

al-Libi in, 255

Abdullah, Abdullah, 100–101, 197, 201

Abrams, Robert B., 273

Abrar (bin Laden’s courier), 243, 245, 246

Abu Ghraib, 111

Achakzai, Mahmood Khan, 82–83, 160

Achakzai, Mansour, 44, 226

Achakzai tribe, 227, 270, 285

Afghan Local Police program, 274–76

Afghan National Army

formation of, 134–35

Highway One deployment, 190–91

Zhare offensive of, 229–30, 273

Afghan National Liberation Front, 204

Afghanistan. See also specific villages, cities and regions of Afghanistan

Canada military operations in, 136–42, 228

casualties, 94–117, 136, 218, 271–72, 286–87, 307n7

civil war in, 40–43

clothing of, 56

corruption ranking of, 216–17

elections of 2001, 206–8

elections of 2009, 196–98, 200–201, 209–13

festivals, 107

financial scandal in, 216–17

hospitality customs of, 59–60

infrastructure, 182–83, 191–93

Iraq resources versus, 131, 195–96

NATO withdrawal from, 285–86

Pakistan as enemy of, xiv

Pakistan negotiations with, 131–32

peace, hope for, 73–74, 197–99, 284

“peace convoy” trade route with, 43–45

refugees of, 57–58, 73, 216

Soviet invasion of, xii–xiii, 40, 120–21, 204, 299n1

tribal assembly (loya jirga), 23–24, 208, 212–15

uprisings, 277

U.S. airstrikes in, 94–106, 218

U....

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Contents
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Foreword
• Prologue
• The Taliban Surrender
• The People Turn
• Pakistan’s Protégés
• The Taliban in Exile
• Al Qaeda Regroups
• The Wrong Enemy in the Wrong Country
• The Taliban Return
• The Suicide Bomb Factory
• Photos
• Militancy Explodes in Pakistan
• The Taliban Close Their Grip
• Karzai’s Turn
• Obama’s Surge
• Osama’s Safe Haven
• Springtime in Zangabad
• Afterword
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• Index
• About the Author
• Connect with HMH