Ahmed Rashid

Ahmed Rashid is Pakistan's premiere journalist, an expert on Central Asia, on jihad and Muslim extremists movements, on the Taliban and Al Qaeda, on insurgency, and on the catastrophe of US policy in this region, on which he has reported for 25 years. Author of three books, his work Taliban was a huge international bestseller, widely recognised as the definitive account. For his latest book Descent into Chaos, he has travelled extensively and personally met and interviewed many of the key players in Central Asia. He writes regularly for The Daily Telegraph, The Washington Post, The International Herald Tribune, BBC Online and many other European and American dailies and websites.

A scholar of the Davos World Economic Forum and a consultant for Human Rights Watch, he is currently on the Board of Advisers to the International Committee of the Red Cross. In 2002 he established the 'Open Media Fund for Afghanistan' (OMFA), which gives cash grants to newly starting independent print media in Afghanistan. So far it has distributed over $300,000 to over two dozen newspaper and magazine start ups all over Afghanistan publishing in Dari, Pushto and Uzbek.