The Afghan solution : the inside story of Abdul Haq, the CIA and how Western hubris lost Afghanistan / Lucy Morgan Edwards.

“Includes bibliography”— (p. 361-365).

Contents: Dramatis personae : principal characters of the narrative and their positions in 2001—Chronology—The 'peace versus justice' strategy : Kabul, June 2002—Reigniting fundamentalism : Kabul, July-October 2002—The poetess of Jalalabad : Jalalabad, October 2002—'I'd rather be a lion for a day, than a jackal all my life' : Jalalabad, October 2002—A 'cataclysmic event for the West' : Peshawar, October 2002—The 'Lion of Kabul' : Afghanistan, 1980s—'These days, we don't know who the enemy is' : Jalalabad, 2002—'Afghanistan will be the world's largest poppy field' : Jalalabad, Shinwar and Kabul, May 2003—'First you call us freedom fighters, now warlords' : Herat and Jalalabad, May 2003—Playing the al-Qaeda card : Jalalabad, Goste and Fatemena, August 2003—'No-one could hold a candle to him', the hurdles faced by a private US effort to support Abdul Haq (part I) : Jalalabad, August 2003—A perspective on British post-September 11 strategy and intelligence, the UK Haq effort (part I) : London, September 2003—'He would have begun a revolution, that's why they killed him so fast,' a Taliban interior minister speaks : Kabul, January 2004—'Camp followers' in Kabul : Kabul and Jalalabad, January 2004-January 2005—The King's group and 'Rome' : Kabul, December 2004—From jihadi commanders to Taliban : Kabul, Faizabad and Jalalabad, 2004-5—Return to Kandahar : Kandahar, 2005—Governance and traditional structures : Jalalabad, 2004-5—A further perspective on British post-September 11 intelligence, the UK Haq effort (part II) : London and Geneva, 2009—When did the US really choose Karzai? A private US effort to support Abdul Haq (part II) : Geneva, July 2009—Abdul Haq and CIA strategy in Afghanistan—Conclusions and ways forward. Abstract: "In 2001, in the weeks around the World Trade Centre attacks, a group of Afghan tribal leaders, commanders and senior Taliban regime figures met in Rome and Peshawar and agreed to work together under the banner of the ex King of Afghanistan with the objective of toppling the Taliban regime. They would be led by the famed Resistance leader of the anti-Soviet war period, Abdul Haq. The plan would be financed by two American Republican brothers who had made their fortune on the Chicago options exchange. On the other side of the Atlantic, a private British contingent including a former head of the UK's Special Boat Service, an ex marine turned tv cameraman and a British Baronet also recognized the potential of Abdul Haq's plan and lobbied for it in Whitehall. The story of all these men, but most of all Abdul Haq, and the reasons he went into Afghanistan on a seemingly impetuous mission, only to be assassinated by the Taliban in October 2001, is told for the first time here by a British woman who experienced important events of the Afghan war first hand and who spent many months in Eastern Afghanistan in the months after the loss of bin Laden from Tora Bora. She stayed with Haq's remaining family, tribal leaders whom journalists had once dubbed 'Resistance Royalty' but who were now accused of drug dealing and who were a pariah to the international community, yet neither were they friends of Pakistan. This is the story of the Afghan solution to the Taliban, why the West thwarted that plan and what it means for NATO as it seeks to stabilize and exit from Afghanistan today."--Publisher's website.