Soldiers of God: With the Mujahidin in Afghanistan - Hardcover

Kaplan, Robert D.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0395521327 ISBN 13: 9780395521328

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin, 1990

Synopsis

Describes the Soviet use of land mines in Afghanistan, recounts the warfare with the Soviet invaders, and suggests reasons for Soviet withdrawal

About this title

From Publishers Weekly

In this vivid, moody account of his travels with the "holy warriors of Islam" during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, freelance journalist Kaplan explains how the threadbare fighters of the Mujahidin Alliance ("a movement without rhetoric or ideology or even a supreme leader") managed to defy and punish a fully equipped modern Soviet army from 1979 until its withdrawal 10 years later. He writes about individuals who represent varying attitudes toward the conflict: John Gunston, an adventurous British photographer and one of the rare Westerners on the scene "not trying to prove himself"; the charismatic Ashnugar, guerrilla leader of a band of homeless boys; a Japanese businessman named Koshiro Tanaka who hoped to kill a Russian with his bare hands. Most exotic, and the central focus of the book, are the ferocious Pathan tribesmen, with their harsh and unforgiving culture, their profound disdain of women and their unambiguous code of honor "free of subtleties and introspection and unaffected by the modern world." Photos.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

In this book, freelance journalist Kaplan recounts his experiences reporting on the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. At times, his real-life encounters--with Soviet helicopters and landmines and occupation Mujahidin and Soviet groups--read like the latest adventure-spy thriller. Kaplan sees his inside view of this overlooked and (to the Western media) unpopular war as an all-too-close brush with the realities of the "conventional" wars of the future: "a war in which there were . . . more deaths than in the Iraq-Iran war and ten times more than the number killed in Lebanon . . . since 1975." Sides are taken in this book; this is not an unbiased piece of reportage. However, it is one of the most moving and emotional works to be written in this decade, graphically reminding us of a war to which we rarely paid attention. Highly recommended for all sizes and types of libraries.
- David P. Snider, Casa Grande P.L., Ariz.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
• Publication date: 1990
• ISBN 10: 0395521327
• ISBN 13: 9780395521328
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 258