Pakistan on the Brink: The future of Pakistan, Afghanistan and the West

Pakistan on the Brink: The future of Pakistan, Afghanistan and the West by Ahmed Rashid Viking Manreet

On April 15, in what is being called the biggest jailbreak in Pakistani history, Taliban fighters stormed a prison in the Northwest Frontier Province of Pakistan and freed almost 400 prisoners. The raid was efficiently organised: a blockade of all roads leading to the prison kept the security forces at bay even as the fugitives escaped into neighbouring North Waziristan, a lawless tribal area rife with al-Qaeda and several militant groups that straddle the Afghan-Pakistani border.

If you're wondering how the Taliban, who started as a militant Islamic group within Afghanistan, morphed into a rallying force for pan-Islamic militants and jihadis operating out of Pakistan, then this is the book for you.

Ahmed Rashid is a respected Pakistani journalist who has reported on the Afghan-Pakistan region for 30 years. Pakistan on the Brink is the third book in a trilogy that has seen him chronicle the rise of the Taliban and al-Qaeda beginning in the 1980s, the US war in Afghanistan following 9/11, and the lead-up to the current crises in the region.

Divided into nine essays, the book examines the conflict from the perspectives of the parties involved - key countries such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the US, and other critical players such as Iran, India and the 'Stans' of Central Asia.

An insurgency is growing within Afghanistan even as the US timeline for withdrawal of its forces approaches. Meanwhile, Hamid Karzai's government is corrupt and has little authority beyond Kabul. An economy dependent on aid will go into a deep recession upon the US exit in 2014, and worse, see a civil war as its neighbours replay the Great Game.