Reading it and over half way through.
So far, I think this is just about the most insightful book on the Taliban I have read to date. Written by a Pakistani who is surely more likely to know about what goes on in his own back yard. Many of the groups, customs, alliances etc. that are beyond our imagination probably are very easy for him to understand and he does a great job explaining them.

EDIT: Woops, my bad, it's Ahmed Rashid. Mispelled his name.

Been looking into acquiering this book myself..
Starting to get a rather extensive libarary on related titles.

//KJ.

Just finished the book.
A MUST READ.

Hope its available in Australia. So far Angus&Robertson is concentrating on selling "Mein Kampf" to everyone.

I tried ordering it n was told it had been discontinued. Guess it was the wrong time or will have to try the big cities.

Yeah it was published in 2001 and most of the work was done years prior to 9/11 so it's not quite as dirtied with the lens of the post 9/11 world. It's a great read. Personally would like to see more works from these folks who are truly insiders in these worlds to understand and publish things about these groups in ways that we can understand.
The work of these kinds of people are very important and I'm surprised that people like him aren't invited to become consultants in the rebuilding of Afghanistan. I don't expect them to have to answer, but they can make some very difficult things much easier to understand.

Went to the book store, they dont have it and they dont know if they ever going to have it again.

This suuuucccckkksss