The Afghanistan File Hardcover ? April 9, 2021

The Afghanistan File', written by the former head of Saudi Arabian Intelligence, tells the story of his Department's involvement in Afghanistan from the time of the Soviet invasion in 1979 to Nine Eleven 2001. It begins with Saudi Arabia's backing of the Mujahideen in their fight against the Soviet occupation and moves on to the fruitless initiatives to broker peace among the Mujahideen factions after the Soviet withdrawal, the rise to power of the Taliban and the shelter the Taliban gave to Osama Bin Laden.

A recurring theme in the book is the extraordinary difficulties Saudi Arabia and its allies faced in dealing with the Mujahideen. Prince Turki found them magnificently brave, but exasperating. On one occasion, while trying to broker peace among them, he obtained the King's permission to open the Kaaba in Mecca. Inside, the leaders were overcome with emotion and swore never to fight each other again. A few hours later on their way to Medina they almost came to blows on the bus. Turki's account provides details of the Saudi attempts to bring its volunteers out of Afghanistan in the 1990s - with chequered success - and his negotiations with the Taliban for the surrender of Osama Bin Laden.

The book includes a number of declassified Intelligence Department documents. Prince Turki explains that the nihilistic, senseless terrorism witnessed in the Middle East over the last twenty years originated in Afghanistan, fueled by Osama's deluded belief that he played a key role in defeating the Russians. There is no evidence that he ever fought them at all. Soon after Nine Eleven, Saudi Arabia discovered that it had a homegrown terrorist problem involving some of the returnees from Afghanistan. Much of the huge change that has taken place in the Kingdom since has stemmed from the campaign to tackle this.

Table of Contents

Forward | An Extraordinary Train of Events | Chapter 1 Invasion and Response | Chapter 2 A Troubled Independence | Chapter 3 The Birth of the Mujahideen | Chapter 4 The Arms Pipeline | Chapter 5 The War – the Early Years | Chapter 6 Charities and Volunteers | Chapter 7 The Office of Services and the House of the Supporters | Chapter 8 The War – Turning Point and the Russian Withdrawal | Chapter 9 The Loya Jirga at Rawalpindi | Chapter 10 Interlude – the Kuwait Crisis | Chapter 11 The Fall of Dr. Najibullah | Chapter 12 Bringing Home the Volunteers | Chapter 13 The Rise of the Taleban | Chapter 14 The Taleban and Bin Laden | Chapter 15 Aftermath

Prince Turki Al-Faisal is the youngest son of King Faisal, who ruled Saudi Arabia from 1964 to 1975. He was educated at Princeton and Georgetown University. From 1978 to 2001 he was head of the Saudi Arabian General Intelligence Department, which was responsible for the Kingdom’s dealings with Afghanistan, and for the next twenty-three years it was Afghanistan that absorbed most of his attention. Soon after he left the Department, he was appointed Ambassador to London from 2003 to 2005, and then Washington from 2005 to 2007. In these posts he argued first against the invasion of Iraq, and once that was a fait accompli, for a more sensitive, less radical political solution than that imposed by the Americans. Since he left Washington Prince Turki has been running the King Faisal Centre for Research and Islamic Studies in Riyadh.

Michael Field read history at Cambridge. He travelled to the Middle East in his long vacations, became a journalist rather by accident and has been working on the Middle East ever since. In the 1970s and 1980s he worked for the Financial Times, and wrote several books, the best known being 'The Merchants', the story of some of the big Arabian business families. In the 1990s he left journalism and worked as a consultant to companies dealing with the Middle East, and from this evolved his main current business which is a series of ruling family trees and government charts covering Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states.

Prince Turki AlFaisal Al Saud is the youngest son of King Faisal, who ruled Saudi Arabia from 1964 to 1975. He was educated at Princeton and Georgetown University. From 1978 to 2001 he was head of the Saudi Arabian General Intelligence Department, which was responsible for the Kingdom's dealings with Afghanistan and for the next twenty-three years it was Afghanistan that absorbed most of his attention. Soon after he left the Department, he was appointed Ambassador to London from 2003 to 2005 and then Washington from 2005 to 2007. In these posts he argued first against the invasion of Iraq and once that was a fait accompli, for a more sensitive, less radical political solution than that imposed by the Americans. Since he left Washington Prince Turki has been running the King Faisal Centre for Research and Islamic Studies in Riyadh.