Product Description

In 1980, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher had taken over the leadership of the West and the Soviets had invaded Afghanistan - the most crucial battle of the Cold War was about to begin. In the high mountain passes of the north-west Frontier and the Hindu Kush, the CIA and MI6 saw an opportunity to bring the mighty Soviet army to its knees. Their weapon: the Islamic guerrillas of the Afghan Mujahideen. The first Western agent to link up with the Mujahideen was Tom Carew, a young ex-SAS soldier with a talent for "black bag" covert operations and veteran of the wars in Dhofar and Northern Ireland. In the course of an extraordinary year, Carew led a series of reconnaissance missions inside Afghanistan; he took part in an astonishing attempt to hijack a shipment of anti-aircraft missiles from Communist Bulgaria for use by the guerrillas and set up the first western-sponsored training camp for Mujahideen in Pakistan. In the course of these operations Carew was accepted and befriended by the fundamentalist Mujahideen and became as close to them as any European individual could ever get. In many ways he was a latter-day Lawrence of Arabia.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #145915 in Books
• Published on: 2001-09-17
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 282 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
As Tom Carew explains in vivid detail in Jihad! The Secret War in Afghanistan, the West was far from passive in its involvement in the Soviet Union-Afghanistan conflict in 1980. As a member of the SAS, Carew was approached by British Intelligence "to link up with the Afghan Mujahideen resistance movement inside Pakistan, and then go into Afghanistan itself, to make an assessment of what training and material help they needed". Carew went much further than that, establishing close personal bonds with the Afghan guerrillas, and helping them in several disorganised and hair-raising attacks on the Soviets, all of which are recounted here in gory detail.

The first half of the book is far more interesting than the second half, which gets bogged down in Carew's frustration at the logistics of setting up a training camp for the Mujahideen in Pakistan. Overall, Jihad! is a very disturbing book, with its indifference to the completely unaccountable nature of this type of bloody covert operation, and Carew's unreflective attitude towards killing. Despite some concluding thoughts on the extent to which the West's intervention in the region "has been somewhat more dubious", this is a chilling book about the murderous realities of global realpolitik at the sharp end. --Jerry Brotton

About the Author
Tom Carew is a former SAS officer and currently works for the United States' Defence Intelligence Agency. He currently lives under a false identity in Belgium.

Customer Reviews

Why pretend he did it?
Lots of detail. Although amatuerish in writing style, easily accessible with some interesting tales. Shame that the author has pretended that he did pre-para and then SAS selection. Worse still, the annoying way he has of bigging himself up. If one didn't know better you might think that he was Mr. SAS. That said, an interesting, albeit very simplistic tale. Got to say that I wouldn't recommend it and do not intend to keep this book or offer it on loan to anyone.

A grain of Salt
Summary: An excellent read but could well be "fiction"


The authors real name is Philip Sessarego.

Dont take this story as entirely factual. While some of it may well be true its just as likely to be all pure fiction. Certainly from a simplistic intelligence/military viewpoint there are some notable discrepancies. Many of the details would be impossible to recall and describe in the detail that they are. There are many clues for the reader that the book is at least fiction in parts.

The author has indeed been shown to have lied about some major points in the book and this may well extend to the entire book. A simple search on the web will reveal this. It is still however a very good story - which may well be due to the skills of the ghost writer Adrian Weale. Overly simplistic in its handling of violence at times and of limited value from a psychological viewpoint it only truely excels in its action sequences, which are relatively well done.

Enjoy the book but dont form any strong views based about the location or events as being "fact".

Fake!
Take this book as a work of fiction and rip-roaring yarn, as the bloke is a total fake and was embarrassingly "outed" by the BBC as he was trying to peddle this book. Its not a bad read, just don't believe a word of it.