Ahmed Rashid

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Ahmed Rashid (b. 1948 in Rawalpindi) is a Pakistani journalist and best-selling author. Rashid attended Malvern College, England, Government College Lahore, and Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge. He serves as the Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review and the Daily Telegraph. He also writes for the Wall Street Journal, The Nation, and academic journals. He appears regularly on international TV and radio networks such as CNN and BBC World.

Rashid's 2000 book, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia, was a New York Times bestseller for five weeks, translated into 22 languages, and has sold 1.5 million copies since the September 11, 2001 attacks.^[1] The book was used extensively by American analysts in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

His commentary also appears in the Washington Post's PostGlobal segment.

Rashid lives in Lahore, Pakistan with his wife and two children.

1 Criticism
2 Works
3 References
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] Criticism

In his 2003 book Jihad - the Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia, Rashid argues that there are "strong links and cooperation between the rank and file" of Hizb ut-Tahrir and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan especially when they are from the same village or town. However, according to Jean-François Mayer of the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs; the insinuation ‘that the party (Hizb ut-Tahrir) will turn violent and has links with the IMU’ is inaccurate: the comments attributed to a member ‘contradicted the party’s ideas’. Representatives of Hizb ut-Tahrir report that they have repeatedly attempted to contact Ahmed Rashid in order to make their views known, but say they have not succeeded. They are even considering writing a rebuttal of his book ^[2]

Rashid has also been criticized for his negative comments towards Uzbeks.