The Wrong Enemy: America in Afghanistan, 2001-2014

A journalist with deep knowledge of the region provides “an enthralling and largely firsthand account of the war in Afghanistan” (Financial Times).

Few reporters know as much about Afghanistan as Carlotta Gall. She was there in the 1990s after the Russians were driven out. She witnessed the early flourishing of radical Islam, imported from abroad, which caused so much local suffering. She was there right after 9/11, when US special forces helped the Northern Alliance drive the Taliban out of the north and then the south, fighting pitched battles and causing their enemies to flee underground and into Pakistan. Gall knows just how much this war has cost the Afghan people--and just how much damage can be traced to Pakistan and its duplicitous government and intelligence forces.

Combining searing personal accounts of battles and betrayals with moving portraits of the ordinary Afghans who were caught up in the conflict for more than a decade, The Wrong Enemy is a sweeping account of a war brought by American leaders against an enemy they barely understood and could not truly engage.

Author: Carlotta Gall
Publisher: Mariner Books
Published: 04/14/2015
Pages: 368
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.61lbs
Size: 7.90h x 5.20w x 1.10d
ISBN: 9780544538566

Review Citation(s):
New York Times Book Review 05/03/2015 pg. 28
Christian Century 12/09/2015 pg. 34

About the Author

CARLOTTA GALL has worked for the New York Times since 1999, including more than ten years in Afghanistan and Pakistan. She previously worked for the Financial Times and the Economist. In 2007 she was featured in the Academy Award-winning documentary Taxi to the Dark Side.