January 19, 2007	Friday	Zilhaj 28, 1427

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ISLAMABAD, Jan 18: Noted Pakistani journalist Zahid Hussain has turned author of international fame with his book Frontline Pakistan — the struggle with militant Islam, already having hit the stands in Britain and a number of other countries, and expected to be available in the country later this week.

Zahid Hussain is senior editor of the Pakistani news magazine Newsline, the Pakistan correspondent for The Times and US news magazine Newsweek.

The book, published in Britain by I.B. Tauris, is the latest in a series of books written on the subject of Islamist militancy and terrorism, including the internationally acclaimed book Taliban by another well-known Pakistani journalist and author, Ahmed Rashid.

Mr Hussain’s book mainly revolves round Pakistan’s crucial role in the post-September 11, 2001 world, and how and why President Gen Pervez Musharraf took some of the most important and somewhat controversial decisions in support of the US-led “war on terror”.

Spread over 220 pages, the book has eleven chapters and a detailed prologue, which are largely based on thorough investigation, thoughtful interviews with key players, and numerous field trips to the conflict zone.

The way the book has been structured and written it is bound to generate more debate and controversy on one of the most talked-about topic in the world — the so-called “war on terror.”

The few details given on the jacket of the cover provide some flavour of the way Mr Hussain has presented the story about Pakistan’s role in war against Al-Qaeda and its local and foreign allies. The author has described for the first time in detail “the incestuous relationship between Pakistan’s jihadis and its all-powerful military intelligence agency — the ISI. It goes on to say, “in the 1980s, the ISI exploited the fanaticism of the jihadi warriors to fight Pakistan’s proxy wars for it in Afghanistan, and later in Kashmir. In pursuing this strategy, the military acted as midwife, to the birth of a murderous jihadi culture which went on to consume it”.

Based on exclusive interviews with key players, Mr Hussain reveals “how Musharraf took the momentous decision to support America’s war against the Taliban, whom Pakistani intelligence had helped to power in the first place”.

The book has already been praised by a number of seasoned writers and analysts like Seymour Hersh, Ahmed Rashid and Sir Hilary Synnott of the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Describing the book as important and informative about the military and religious politics in Pakistan, Mr Hersh says, “it is also a history of our times, as seen through the eyes of George W. Bush’s Washington and Pervez Musharraf’s Islamabad. The future is now, and it is very worrisome”.