A Rope and a Prayer (50 page)

38 “a purely accidental geographic unit”:
Cullather, 6. Cullather states that the Curzon quote is from Cuthbert Collin Davies,
The Problem of the North-West Frontier, 1890-1908,
Cambridge University Press (1932), 153.

39 The division would rankle:
Poullada,
The Kingdom of Afghanistan and the United States
, 83.

39 declined to recognize it:
Ibid., 37-40.

39 the “Afghan blind-spot”:
Ibid., 40-41.

39 early American writing about Afghanistan:
Ibid., 9-17. Ben Macintyre,
The Man Who Would Be King: The First American in Afghanistan,
Farrar, Straus and Giroux (2004), xiv. Macintyre’s book describes Harlan’s many adventures and claims.

40 Afghanistan’s ruling family:
Poullada describes how the royal family began sending young Afghans to be educated in the United States and Europe in the 1930s. Several dozen young Afghan men studied at Cornell, Columbia, and other elite American universities. At the same time, Afghan officials invited young German, French, and American teachers to instruct in Afghanistan. See Poullada,
The Kingdom of Afghanistan and the United States
, 28.

41 World War II finally ignited:
Ibid., 70.

46 years of American and Afghan government missteps:
Much of the narrative describing the post-2001 American effort stems from interviews with senior Bush administration officials from 2006 to 2010 as well as David Rohde and David E. Sanger, “How a Good War Went Bad in Afghanistan,”
New York Times,
August 12, 2007;
www.nytimes.com/2007/08/12/world/asia/12afghan.html
.

51 he predicted that the cut:
Ronald E. Neumann,
The Other War: Winning and Losing in Afghanistan
, Potomac Books (2009), 50.

61 One of David’s colleagues:
The reporter asked not to be identified.

62 Jere Van Dyk:
Author of
Captive: My Time as a Prisoner of the Taliban
(2010) and
In Afghanistan: An American Odyssey
(1983).

63 Michael Semple:
Semple is head of Talk for Peace International (TFPI). “TFPI is a network of concerned idealists who want to make a tangible contribution to achieving peace. We promote the use of dialogue and political engagement, backed up by practical interventions to improve people’s lives, as a way of transforming conflict.” For more information about this organization go to
www.talkforpeace.org
.

68 American-style university:
We visited Lahore University of Management Sciences.

72 the Taliban and Al Qaeda have reestablished:
See Mark Mazzetti and David Rohde, “Amid U.S. Policy Disputes, Qaeda Grows in Pakistan,”
New York Times
, June 30, 2008;
www.nytimes.com/2008/06/30/washington/30tribal.html
.

75 “They kidnapped children”:
See
Report on Waziristan and Its Tribes
(1901), 21
.

77 83 percent of the men and 97 percent of the women:
See Zulfiqar Ali, “Understanding Tribal Areas,”
Dawn
, April 2, 2010;
www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/local/peshawar/understanding-tribal-areas-240
.

78 “Every man’s hand is against the other”:
Winston S. Churchill,
The Story of the Malakand Field Force: An Episode of Frontier War
(2005), 15-16. The book’s first chapter, “The Theatre of War,” is an extraordinarily vivid piece of writing, but deeply flawed and bigoted.

89 “goodness personified”:
Much of the Wilson narrative stems from George Crile,
Charlie Wilson’s War,
Grove Press (2003), 470-74.

89 The congressman half jokingly replied:
The prisoner anecdote is from a lecture Wilson delivered in Washington, D.C., in October 2008, one month before the author was kidnapped by Haqqani’s sons.

90 Born in the village of Srana:
In southeastern Afghanistan, his tribe—the Zadran—formed his main power base, in particular his subtribe, the Sultankhel.

90 conservative Deobandi Islam:
This is the interpretation of Islam followed by many Taliban members. It emerged from the town of Deoband in northern India in response to British colonial rule in the late 1800s.

90 He left Afghanistan:
Haqqani built the sprawling Manba Uloom madrassa in the 1980s just north of Miran Shah in the town of Danda Darpa Khel. The school’s students served as his fighters in the 1980s and after 2001. The author was imprisoned in houses near the madrassa for most of his time in Miran Shah.

90 garrisoned in the Afghan city of Khost:
The Soviets responded by building a sprawling airfield and flying in supplies. A massive 1988 Soviet offensive broke Haqqani’s siege. It was the last Soviet victory of the war.

90 Deft at cultivating support:
Throughout the 1980s, the ISI played Haqqani against Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, another mujahideen commander who competed with Haqqani for Pakistani and American support. For years, Haqqani would resent the ISI for not promoting him as the sole Pashtun leader of the Afghan resistance. See Ahmed Rashid,
Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia
(2000). During a fund-raising tour of Persian Gulf countries, Haqqani so impressed a young Egyptian journalist that the budding reporter traveled to Afghanistan and fought alongside Haqqani and his men. The writing of the journalist, who later became a senior member of Al Qaeda, turned Haqqani into a folk hero among the “Arab volunteers” who came to fight the Soviets. One of those volunteers was Osama bin Laden.

90 The two men and a few dozen of their fighters:
The battle was in the village of Jaji in Paktia Province. Whether Haqqani was present is disputed by some researchers. Most describe him being there.

91 “hero mujahed sheikh”:
The descriptions of Haqqani’s relationship with the CIA and Bin Laden stem from Steve Coll,
The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century
(2008), 294. For a detailed and insightful description of Haqqani’s receipt of American funding, closeness to Bin Laden, and support for the Taliban see Steve Coll,
Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001
(2004), 131, 157, 167, 202, 227, 231, 293, 521.

91 When the victorious mujahideen:
The capital of Khost, the province Wilson toured, was the first major city to fall to the mujahideen. In April 1991, Haqqani and his men entered the city, but they continued to heavily rely on the support of the ISI. Pakistani army artillery and tanks reportedly fired shells from Pakistan to support Haqqani’s assault. Khost was the first major city to fall to the mujahideen, but problems quickly emerged. After local mullahs told their followers that foreign aid workers were telling Afghan women to have free sex, an enraged mob burned a health clinic and threatened Afghan nurses and teachers. One was kidnapped and murdered. The American ambassador to Pakistan called for the CIA’s covert support to the mujahideen to stop, and the administration of President George H. W. Bush requested no funding for fiscal year 1992. Yet Wilson continued to finance them, using his position on the House Intelligence Committee to maneuver $200 million in secret monies through Congress. Crile,
Charlie Wilson’s War
, 515-19.

91 He also commanded:
At the time, Haqqani funded the operations with donations from Arab countries and complained to journalists that the Taliban were unable to organize themselves.

92 missiles struck the camp:
Crile,
Charlie Wilson’s War,
522.

92 American bombs destroyed:
Haqqani became the third highest target on the U.S. bombing list, ibid., 521. In a 2010 interview, a former American intelligence official confirmed the meetings with Haqqani in the fall of 2001.

92 an acceptance of suicide bombing:
As many as 80 percent of suicide bombers dispatched to Afghanistan between 2001 and 2007 are believed to have passed through North Waziristan, according to a September 2007 United Nations study. For detailed accounts of the resurgence of the Haqqani network see Thomas Ruttig, “The Haqqani Network as an Autonomous Entity,” in
Decoding the New Taliban: Insights from the Afghan Field
(2010), 57-88 and Anand Gopal, Mansur Khan Mahsud, and Brian Fishman, “Inside the Haqqani Network, The Af Pak Channel, June 3, 2010, at
afpak.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/06/03/inside_the_haqqani_network_0
.

97 The head of Clayton:
The subject has asked not to be identified.

100 Samantha Power:
Senior director for Multilateral Affairs, National Security Council.

112 One of my colleagues:
The colleague asked not to be identified.

133 They tell us:
We have not mentioned offer amounts to protect future captives. We do not want to set a precedent for future kidnappings.

145 I know from things I have previously read:
For a detailed description of Ghaffar Khan see Rajmohan Gandhi,
Ghaffar Khan: Nonviolent Badshah of the Pashtuns
, Viking (2004) and
Frontier Gandhi: Badshah Khan, a Torch for Peace
, a 2008 documentary written and produced by T. C. McLuhan.

162 welcomed Arabs and Uzbeks:
Much of the background narrative in this section comes from Mazzetti and Rohde, “Amid U.S. Policy Disputes, Qaeda Grows in Pakistan.” It was also supplemented with interviews in the United States and Pakistan from 2008 to 2010.

167 tens of millions of dollars:
See David Rohde, Carlotta Gall, Eric Schmitt, and David E. Sanger, “U.S. Officials See Waste in Billions Sent to Pakistan,”
New York Times
, December 24, 2007;
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/24/world/asia/24military.html
.

168 The Pakistani military fought:
See Carlotta Gall and Mohammad Khan, “Pakistan’s Push in Border Areas Is Said to Falter,”
New York Times
, January 22, 2006. For a detailed history of missteps by Musharraf and American officials see Ahmed Rashid,
Descent into Chaos;
www.nytimes.com/2006/01/22/international/asia/22pakistan.html
.

168 killed or wounded:
See Associated Press, “Civilian Deaths Spike in Afghanistan, Pakistan,” April 28, 2010;
www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/04/28/world/main6439690.shtml
.

169 a retired senior official from the ISI:
See Carlotta Gall and David Rohde, “Militants Escape Control of Pakistan, Officials Say,”
New York Times
, January 15 2008;
www.nytimes.com/2008/01/15/world/asia/15isi.html
.

179 threaten to kill Solecki:
See Associated Press, “Kidnappers Threaten to Kill U.N. Worker,” story on Solecki kidnapping, February 13, 2009;
www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29183644/
.

179 Piotr Stanczak:
Pakistani journalists reported that Stanczak was killed because Pakistani Taliban commanders were fighting over him. See Mazhar Tufail, “TTP Infighting Led to Beheading of Polish Engineer,”
The News
, February 12, 2009;
www.thenews.com.pk/print1.asp?id=162048
.

186 The phone rings:
Parts of the conversation in which the authors discussed how much was offered at the time have not been included in the chapter. We are not disclosing the amount of the offer because we believe it could encourage or complicate future kidnappings.

192 weeps at a radio news broadcast:
It is not clear what civilian casualty report Abu Tayyeb heard that day. It may have been a UN report that said civilian casualties had increased in Afghanistan by 40 percent in 2008;
www.nytimes.com/2009/02/18/world/asia/18afghan.html
.

195 Afghan girl that appeared:
Photograph by Steve McCurry.

205 uses some type of weapon:
Akbar may have been referring to depleted uranium. American military officials say they have used no depleted uranium in Afghanistan, but some experts question their claim;
www.news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3050317.stm
.

205 they take turns attending bomb-making classes:
See David Rohde and C. J. Chivers, “Qaeda’s Grocery Lists and Manuals of Killing,”
New York Times
, March 17, 2002,
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/17/world/a-nation-challenged-qaeda-s-grocery-lists-and-manuals-of-killing
. html.

227 my English-language Koran:
The English-language Koran I read was Marmaduke Pickthall, The Holy Quran with English and Urdu Translation, Kitab Bhavan (2001).

220 A shadow of the endeavor:
Much of the Helmand narrative stems from David Rohde, “An Afghan Symbol of Change, Then Failure,”
New York Times
, September 5, 2006;
www.nytimes.com/2006/09/05/world/asia/05afghan.html
.

224 “conveyor-belt courses”:
The European official who derided the DynCorp police training was Michael Semple, who later advised Kristen on David’s kidnapping.

225 handed over the districts:
Tom Coghlan, “Weak Government Allows Taleban to Prosper in Afghanistan,”
The Times
(of London), September 29, 2008;
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article4842499.ece
.

225 she feared that the Taliban:
While she expressed disappointment with the British, Fowzea reflected the shortcomings of the Afghan effort herself. Since 2001, Fowzea had not once traveled to Kabul to lobby for funds from the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, even after USAID established direct, regular flights for Afghans. She could not tell me the size of her annual budget and appeared poorly organized.