From obscurity to celebrity

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON, OCT. 11. Until a couple of weeks ago, few outside the academic and bookish circles had probably heard of him. But today Mr. Ahmed Rashid, a Pakistani journalist, is a household name as experts at Downing Street and in Britain's many think-tanks pore over his seminal work on the Taliban for a clue to the political and social complexities of Afghanistan.

``Taliban: Islam, Oil and the New Great Game in Central Asia'' has become a best-seller, and anyone who has any pretensions on Afghanistan has either already read it, or reading it - or, in the worst scenario, trying to get hold of it. The Guardian today claimed that the Prime Minister, Mr. Tony Blair's plans for post- Taliban Afghanistan were ``heavily influenced'' by Mr. Rashid's book which emphasises that the key to Kabul's stability lies in a multi-tribal regime. ``The book'', the newspaper informs its readers,``is being read not just by the Prime Minister but by his personal assistant, Anji Hunter and the director of communications Alastair Campbell, a man not normally taken with such tomes.'' When Mr. Blair was in Pakistan last week, his officials met Mr. Rashid whose view that the Northern Alliance is not a natural alternative to the Taliban is shared by the British Prime Minister and those who advise him on Afghan affairs.

Britain-educated Mr. Rashid, who writes for Far Eastern Economic Review and several British newspapers, is described by those who know him as ``Left-of-the-centre in the Pakistani sense''. In Pakistan itself, the book has been greeted with much less enthusiasm and it is believed that even here it had gone virtually unnoticed until Afghanistan burst on the scene after the September 11 outrage in America. A number of old titles relating to Afghanistan have been reprinted in recent weeks to meet the demand for any sensible literature on that war-ravaged country.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : International
Previous : South Africa cautions citizens
Next     : Osama using TV to send coded messages?