"Comprehensively and for the first time, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Steve Coll tells the secret history of the CIA's role in Afghanistan, including its covert program against Soviet troops from 1979 to 1989, and examines the rise of the Taliban, the emergence of bin Laden, and the secret efforts by CIA officers and their agents to capture or kill bin Laden in Afghanistan after 1998. Based on extensive firsthand accounts, Ghost Wars is the inside...

Veteran defense analyst and Afghanistan expert David Isby provides an insightful and meticulously researched look at the current situation in Afghanistan, its history, and what he believes must be done so that the US-NATO coalition can succeed in one of the poorest countries in the world, rife with divisions that dwarf current schisms in Iraq, led by warlords who fight over control of the drug trade as much as they do over religion. After seven years...

A masterful blend of graphic reporting, illuminating interviews, and insightful analysis, here is the first account of Afghanistan's turbulent recent history by an independent eyewitness. Showing how and why Soviet efforts to negotiate an end to the war came to nothing, Steele explains how negotiations today could put a stop to the tragedies that have afflicted Afghanistan for three decades.