The information for this book came almost entirely from personal experience and observations during my time at ISI, and more recently when I returned to Peshawar. I know the Mujahideen, some of their Commanders and all their Leaders well. W e worked and planned together for four years and I have discussed the situation today with many of them. This book, therefore, has not been written with extensive use of works of reference, or from the stories of journalists. I disagree with much that has been written about the war in Afghanistan. Sometimes the facts are wrong, more often the interpretation is wrong. This does not mean that all books on the war are valueless, far from it, but merely that 1 found very few to be reliable aids when compiling my manuscript. Those that were included Mark Urban's War in Afghanistan, Macmillan Press, 1988; David C. Isby's War in a Distant Country, Arms and Armour Press, 1986; and Robert D. Kaplan's Soldiers of God, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1990. Of these I found the first-mentioned to be particularly authentic and accurate.