From the managing editor of the Washington Post, a news-breaking account of the CIA's involvement in the covert wars in Afghanistan that fueled Islamic militancy and gave rise to bin Laden's al Qaeda. For nearly the past quarter century, while most Americans were unaware, Afghanistan has been the playing field for intense covert operations by U.S. and foreign intelligence agencies-invisible wars which sowed the seeds of the September 11 attacks and which provide its context. From the Soviet invasion in 1979 through the summer of 2001, the CIA, KGB, Pakistan's ISI, and Saudi Arabia's General Intelligence Department all operated directly and secretly in Afghanistan. They primed Afghan factions with cash and weapons, secretly trained guerrilla forces, funded propaganda, and manipulated politics. In the midst of these struggles bin Laden conceived and then built his global organization. Comprehensively and for the first time, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Steve Coll tells the secret history of the CIA's role in Afghanistan, from its covert program against Soviet troops from 1979 to 1989, to the rise of the Taliban and the emergence of bin Laden, to 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 Warsok is the inside story that goes well beyond anything previously published on U.S. involvement in Afghanistan. It chronicles the roles of midlevel CIA officers, their Afghan allies, and top spy masters such as Bill Casey, Saudi Arabia's Prince Turki al Faisal, and George Tenet. And it describes heated debates within the American government and the often poisonous, mistrustful relations between the CIA and foreign intelligence agencies. Ghost Warsanswers the questions so many have asked since the horrors of September 11: To what extent did America's best intelligence analysts grasp the rising threat of Islamist radicalism? Who tried to stop bin Laden and why did they fail? Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

A Pulitzer Prize winner who covered Afghanistan for the Washington Post from 1989 to 1992, Coll explains how long and how deeply we've been entrenched there. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information. From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

Much like George Crile's Charlie Wilson's War (2003) and Richard Clarke's recent bombshell Against All Enemies (2004), Coll, a managing editor of The Washington Post, sets the stage by focusing on Afghanistan. Coll considers Afghanistan ready-made for Islamic terrorism, and accentuates that there is enough blame to tarnish everyone associated with the covert war against the Soviets, especially those who bankrolled jihadists to oust the Russians from the region. All of the parties in the anti-Soviet jihad had rather narrow parochial interests, particularly the Pakistanis and Saudis, who sought to install a friendly Islamist regime in Kabul. Totally oblivious to the dangers of Islamic radicalism, the CIA initially accepted the Pakistani agenda despite warnings to the contrary, and failed to support any alternative to the Taliban. The Agency (as the CIA is often characterized) was hampered by overly legalistic interpretations of lethal force, Coll notes, just when Langley finally grasped the threat posed by Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. Readers seeking additional information beyond the 9/11 Commission hearings can turn to this engaging and thought-provoking account, which explains the coming tragedy of 9/11. ^BSumming Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries. C. C. Lovett Emporia State University From: Syndetics Solutions, Inc. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

Winner of a 1990 Pulitzer Prize for explanatory journalism, Steve Coll has been managing editor of The Washington Post since 1998 and covered Afghanistan as the Post's South Asia bureau chief between 1989 and 1992. Coll is the author of four books, He lives with his wife and three children in Maryland Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

List of Maps	p. xiii
Principal Characters	p. xiv
Prologue: Accounts Receivable, September 1996	p. 1
Part 1 Blood Brothers, November 1979 to February 1989	p. 19
1. "We're Going to Die Here"	p. 21
2. "Lenin Taught Us"	p. 38
3. "Go Raise Hell"	p. 53
4. "I Loved Osama"	p. 71
5. "Don't Make It Our War"	p. 89
6. "Who Is This Massoud?"	p. 107
7. "The Terrorists Will Own the World"	p. 125
8. "Inshallah, You Will Know My Plans"	p. 147
9. "We Won"	p. 170
Part 2 The One-Eyed Man Was King, March 1989 to December 1997	p. 187
10. "Serious Risks"	p. 189
11. "A Rogue Elephant"	p. 205
12. "We Are in Danger"	p. 225
13. "A Friend of Your Enemy"	p. 240
14. "Maintain a Prudent Distance"	p. 257
15. "A New Generation"	p. 266
16. "Slowly, Slowly Sucked into It"	p. 280
17. "Dangling the Carrot"	p. 301
18. "We Couldn't Indict Him"	p. 314
19. "We're Keeping These Stingers"	p. 336
20. "Does America Need the CIA?"	p. 353
Part 3 The Distant Enemy, January 1998 to September 10, 2001	p. 369
21. "You Are to Capture Him Alive"	p. 371
22. "The Kingdom's Interests"	p. 397
23. "We Are at War"	p. 416
24. "Let's Just Blow the Thing Up"	p. 437
25. "The Manson Family"	p. 451
26. "That Unit Disappeared"	p. 470
27. "You Crazy White Guys"	p. 487
28. "Is There Any Policy?"	p. 504
29. "Daring Me to Kill Them"	p. 520
30. "What Face Will Omar Show to God?"	p. 538
31. "Many Americans Are Going to Die"	p. 553
32. "What an Unlucky Country"	p. 567
Notes	p. 577
Bibliography	p. 653
Acknowledgments	p. 665
Index	p. 669

Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.