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Ahmed Rashid: Taliban Activity Up In Pakistan

Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid joins Fresh Air to discuss recent Taliban advances in Pakistan.

Taliban-led violence in Pakistan, especially on the Afghanistan border, appears to be escalating. On Feb. 3, militants associated with the hard-line religious movement destroyed a bridge in Northwest Pakistan that supplies food, gas, and equipment to US-led forces in Afghanistan. On Feb. 2, an American U.N. official was kidnapped and his Pakistani driver were killed; officials say they suspect Taliban militants.

Rashid covers Pakistani culture and politics for a number of publications including The Daily Telegraph and The Far Eastern Economic Review.

He has written several books, including Descent into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia and the bestseller Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil, and Fundamentalism in Central Asia. He is a regular guest on Fresh Air..

Copyright 2023 Fresh Air. To see more, visit Fresh Air.

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