Descent Into Chaos
Ahmed Rashid
Allen Lane, Rs 495

Ahmed rashid first caught the world’s attention with his deeply researched and well-timed book on the Taliban. The present work brings the reader up-to-scratch on how the geopolitical centre of gravity of Islamic extremism shifted from the Middle East in 2003 to embed itself firmly in no-man’s-land between Pakistan and Afghanistan. It was here that the Glasgow bombings, the killing of the Spanish tourists in Yemen and the failed bombings of the US’s Ramstein Air Base and Barcelona were planned in the past two years. It was also here that the successful plans to bomb London, Madrid, Bali and Islamabad were conceived. These killings are listed as part of the international campaign of terror that, sadly, does not include Hyderabad, Varanasi, Mumbai and Jaipur.

Rashid has spent 25 years piecing his story together to produce this book. He also explains how Azhar Masood and Hafez Sayed acted as links between Al Qaeda and the terrorists operating in Kashmir to tap into international expertise and carry the war against Kashmir to other parts of India, killing hundreds of Indian civilians, quite often in Muslim localities.

Rashid’s story begins with the World Trade Center attack, but gets into stride describing the 2003-4 period when a distracted US lost its way in Iran and let Afghanistan’s future be captured by extremists supported by the Pakistan Army acting in defiance of America’s struggle to assist Hamid Karzai in governing his war-torn country. Indian state institutions hardly figure in the book.

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