Ahmed Rashid (

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
'' Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...

) is a

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalis ...

and best-selling foreign policy author of several books about

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is borde ...

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...

, and

Central Asia Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes the fo ...

Life and career

Ahmed Rashid was born in

Rawalpindi Rawalpindi ( or ; Urdu, ) is a city in the Punjab province of Pakistan. It is the fourth largest city in Pakistan after Karachi, Lahore and Faisalabad, and third largest in Punjab after Lahore and Faisalabad. Rawalpindi is next to Pakistan ...

, Pakistan. He attended

Malvern College Malvern College is an Independent school (United Kingdom), independent coeducational day and boarding school in Malvern, Worcestershire, Malvern, Worcestershire, England. It is a public school (United Kingdom), public school in the British sen ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

Government College Lahore The Government College University, Lahore (colloquially known as GCU), is a public research university located in Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan. Opened as Government College, Lahore, in 1864, it became a university in 2002. Overview In 1864, Gov ...

, and

Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge Fitzwilliam College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , establish ...

Cambridge University , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

in the late 1960s. After graduating, Rashid spent ten years in the hills of

Balochistan Balochistan ( ; bal, بلۏچستان; also romanised as Baluchistan and Baluchestan) is a historical region in Western and South Asia, located in the Iranian plateau's far southeast and bordering the Indian Plate and the Arabian Sea coastline. ...

, attempting to organise an uprising against the Pakistani military dictatorships of

Ayub Khan Ayub Khan is a compound masculine name; Ayub is the Arabic version of the name of the Biblical figure Job, while Khan or Khaan is taken from the title used first by the Mongol rulers and then, in particular, their Islamic and Persian-influenced s ...

and

Yahya Khan General Agha Muhammad Yahya Khan , (Urdu: ; 4 February 1917 – 10 August 1980); commonly known as Yahya Khan, was a Pakistani military general who served as the third President of Pakistan and Chief Martial Law Administrator following his p ...

. He ended his guerrilla fighting days frustrated and defeated and turned his attention to writing about his homeland. Pauline Neville-Jones and Ahmed Rashid at HISF 2012

Pauline Neville-Jones and Ahmed Rashid at HISF 2012

He has been the

and

Correspondent for ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was f ...

'' for more than 20 years and a correspondent for ''

Far Eastern Economic Review The ''Far Eastern Economic Review'' (''FEER'') was an Asian business magazine published between 1946 and December 2009 in the English language. Based in Hong Kong, the news magazine published weekly until December 2004, when it converted to a m ...

''. He also writes for ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

'', ''

The Nation ''The Nation'' is an American liberal biweekly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper t ...

'', ''

Daily Times (Pakistan) The ''Daily Times'' (''DT'') is an English-language Pakistani newspaper. Launched on April 9, 2002, ''Daily Times'', is simultaneously published from Lahore, Islamabad and Karachi. The newspaper was owned by Governor of Punjab and Pakistan Peo ...

'' and academic journals. He appears regularly on international TV channels and radio networks such as CNN,

BBC World BBC World News is an International broadcasting, international English-language pay television network, operated under the ''BBC Global News Limited'' division of the BBC, which is a State-owned enterprise, public corporation of the Governme ...

and many Pakistani TV channels. "Now something of an elder statesman, Mr. Rashid is sought after for advice by diplomats in Islamabad and Kabul, and by policy makers in NATO capitals and Washington." He is a well known and vocal critic of the Bush administration in relation to the Iraq war and its alleged neglect of the

Taliban The Taliban (; ps, طالبان, ṭālibān, lit=students or 'seekers'), which also refers to itself by its state (polity), state name, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a Deobandi Islamic fundamentalism, Islamic fundamentalist, m ...

issue. Rashid's 2000 book, '' Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia'', was a ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' bestseller for five weeks, translated into 22 languages, and has sold 1.5 million copies since the

September 11, 2001 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commer ...

, "an astonishing number for an academic press." The book was used extensively by American analysts in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. Rashid charged that former President George W. Bush plagiarized his work in writing his memoirs. His commentary also appears in ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large n ...

's'' PostGlobal segment. "Rashid is a regular columnist for leading national and international publications and a frequent guest on NPR's (National Public Radio) Fresh Air."

"An expert on the Taliban -- until 9/11 he knew them better than almost any outsider -- Mr. Rashid has over the decades turned out to be something of a prophet in the region, though mostly of the Cassandra type, issuing repeated warnings that are ignored by policy makers."

Ahmed Rashid is married with two children and lives in

Lahore Lahore ( ; pnb, ; ur, ) is the second List of cities in Pakistan by population, most populous city in Pakistan after Karachi and 26th List of largest cities, most populous city in the world, with a population of over 13 million. It is th ...

Punjab Punjab (; Punjabi Language, Punjabi: پنجاب ; ਪੰਜਾਬ ; ; also Romanization, romanised as ''Panjāb'' or ''Panj-Āb'') is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the northern part of the I ...

Selected works

*''The Resurgence of Central Asia: Islam or Nationalism?'', St. Martin's Press (May 1994), . *'' Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia'',

Yale University Press Yale University Press is the university press of Yale University. It was founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day, and became an official department of Yale University in 1961, but it remains financially and operationally autonomous. , Yale Univers ...

(March 2000) . *'' Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia'',

(January 25, 2002) . (

Hyderabad Hyderabad ( ; , ) is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana and the ''de jure'' capital of Andhra Pradesh. It occupies on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River, in the northern part of Southern Indi ...

Orient Longman Orient Blackswan Pvt. Ltd. (formerly Orient Longman India, commonly referred to as Orient Longman), is an Indian publishing house headquartered in Hyderabad, Telangana. The company publishes academic, professional and general works as well as s ...

, 2002) *''Descent into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia'', Viking, 2008, . *''Taliban: The Power of Militant Islam in Afghanistan and Beyond'', 2nd ed,

I.B.Tauris I.B. Tauris is an educational publishing house and imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing. It was an independent publishing house with offices in London and New York City until its purchase in May 2018 by Bloomsbury Publishing. It specialises in non ...

(April 2010), *''Pakistan on the Brink: The Future of America, Pakistan, and Afghanistan'', Viking Adult (March 15, 2012), .

References

External links

Ahmed Rashid
Official website
Contributor
from ''

The New York Review of Books ''The New York Review of Books'' (or ''NYREV'' or ''NYRB'') is a semi-monthly magazine with articles on literature, culture, economics, science and current affairs. Published in New York City, it is inspired by the idea that the discussion of i ...

''
Ahmed Rashid's Columns archive
at ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers '' The Observer'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the ...

'' (newspaper)
Ahmed Rashid's Columns archive
at

Aljazeera Al Jazeera ( ar, الجزيرة, translit-std=DIN, translit=al-jazīrah, , "The Island") is a state-owned Arabic-language international radio and TV broadcaster of Qatar. It is based in Doha and operated by the media conglomerate Al Jazee ...

(aljazeera.com website) * TV Networks
C-SPAN ''Q&A'' interview with Rashid, May 2, 2010
* * *

''

'', 5 July 2008
After the Death of Osama bin Laden: Now to Break the Al-Qaeda Franchise
19 May 2011
"Worse than Afghanistan"
Pakistani writer and Taliban expert Ahmed Rashid reports on the failures of the international community in Mali. {{DEFAULTSORT:Rashid, Ahmed Pakistani male journalists Pakistani non-fiction writers Foreign policy writers Central Asian studies scholars Alumni of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge People educated at Malvern College 1948 births Living people Government College University, Lahore alumni Journalists from Lahore Pakistani television journalists Historians of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs People from Lahore

Life and career

Selected works

See also

References

External links