Delivering Osama

Taliban: A Critical History from Within byAbdul Hai Mutma'in offers an inside account ofthe Afghan movement and their government. Inhis preface, the author notes that his bookwill please neither supporters of the Talibannor those who fight and condemn them. It isthis trenchant quality that makes it uniqueamong the memoirs of those who used to workfor and with the Taliban. Mutma'in's accountoften feels like a corrective, critical ofthose outside the Taliban but also of themovement itself. Whereas most books of thiskind stop with the invasion of the UnitedStates in October 2001, Mutma'in shares thestory of how the Taliban fled, how resistancewas organised and how they grew into a potentinsurgency force. Mutma'in's book is essentialreading for anyone seeking to understand theTaliban and recent Afghan history.