Insight with Hamida Ghafour and Ahmed Rashid: Are the Taliban winning?

Hamida Ghafour, reporter and a daughter of Afghan refugees and Ahmed Rashid, author of a highly-acclaimed book on the Taliban discuss if the Taliban set to regain control or are they being slowly but steadily marginalised?
Moderated by David Loyn.

Ahmed Rashid‘s Taliban: The story of the Afghan Warlords is probably the best book written on Afghan war and politics in the modern era.

Rashid is a Pakistani journalist who has spent most of his career reporting on the region – he has personally met and interviewed many of the Taliban’s leaders.

Although Taliban was written and published shortly before 9/11, it gives an extraordinary insight into the regime.

It describes how the Taliban came to power, its oppression of Afghan citizens and especially women, its links with the drugs trade and the rise of bin Laden.

Hamida Ghafour‘s family fled Kabul after the Russian invasion. In 2003 she was sent back by the Daily Telegraph to cover the country’s reconstruction. 

In her new book The Sleeping Buddha: The Story of Afghanistan Through the Eyes of One Family she describes the country’s present, its elusive past and her family’s role in it.

David Loyn is the BBC Developing World Correspondent and has covered Afghanistan extensively. His interview with the Taliban late last year raised the issue of whether reporters should cover stories from the enemy’s point of view.