My Life With The Taliban

By Abdul Salam Zaeef Translation by Alex Strick Van Linschoten and Felix Kuehn Columbia University Press; Pp 360;

The translators, who have brought Abdul Salam Zaeef’s story in Pushto to English speaking and reading public  are reportedly permanent residents of Kandahar. Given the security concerns the very mention of Kandahar brings up front, Alex and Felix must indeed be two brave souls with a mission about which we don’t learn much as we leaf through the 360 pages.

At the very outset Zaeef makes out a strong case that the Taliban were masters of their own destiny right from the word go and that neither ISI nor the US had played a role in the emergence of Taliban. He doesn’t deny however that the Taliban had served the interests of the ISI and by extension of the US too.

Where the Zaeef account becomes fascinating is the mirror he holds to the medieval rule Afghanistan had witnessed in the 20th century for close to five years. The mirror doesn’t reflect what all was there to see. That is because the writer is given to bouts of selective memory lapses. One also can discern antagonism towards Pakistan probably because he had scores to settle with the ISI interlocutors and even Gen Musharraf, whose assassination he appears to have planned.   Hatred towards America and Americans is understandable in a Taliban even if he has become a former after a stint at Guantanamo Bay.  And this is reflected in his denouncement of the US of A as the enemy of Islam for its efforts at giving equal rights to men and women.

While this book’s historical value and authenticity of its narrative are doubtful, it is nevertheless a welcome addition to the growing Jihadi literature to the extent it serves to caution the world of the perils of letting Taliban, al Qaeda and their clones return to Kabul through the back door.