About the Book

Who Is Winning The War In Afghanistan?

A pro - Communist coup, the impact and aftermath of the Soviet (1978-79) invasion and 30 years of war have demolished the social life, cohesion, integrity, solidarity, trust, capacity, and economy of Afghanistan. Millions of people have migrated to foreign countries, houses and villages have been destroyed, the country’s economy and infrastructure has been utterly destroyed, millions of young civilians and children have been deprived of education and thousands of women have been widowed. The conflict in Afghanistan has also had a great impact on security, economy and the political prosperity of other parts of the world.

The 9/11 incidents which shocked the world, once again drew international attention back to the forgotten Afghanistan. The Bonn conference (2001), the NATO led invasion, the collapse of the Taliban regime and the promises of the international community to build a democratic Afghan government with a solid institution and strong security force, created great hopes amongst the Afghan population for a better future.

After the fall of the Taliban regime, the violence and insurgency began to increase. Despite all international efforts and an increase in troop numbers from 10,000 in 2002 to around 140,000 in 2010 and the spending of £50 billion in aid, the Afghan government is still weak and does not have control over the whole country; the armed forces are not strong enough; violence continues to rise and last year was the deadliest year in nearly nine year of war; additionally, the security situation across the country looks increasingly bad.

The lasting war has had little success in Afghanistan, the pressure of insurgents, increasing casualties, unpopularity of war among the population of NATO-led countries and enormous war costs in a worsening economic climate have caused the announcement of the withdrawal of troops by US President B. Obama in 2011 and the UK Prime Minister D. Cameron by 2015.

This book aims to determine the answer to the question of whether the Coalition Forces are winning the war in Afghanistan.

About the Author

Sayed Zia Sais was born in a very well educated and middle class family in Afghanistan. His father was a highly respected judge. Sayed Zia Sais started to go to school from the age of six at Mahmod Hotaki School in Kabul- Afghanistan then he went for higher education to Naderia High School in Kabul. After passing the university entry exam (admission test) in 1980, he succeeded in gaining admission to the Faculty of Economics at Kabul University. At the end of 1984, he successfully fi nished his education and got a BSc diploma and started his career at the Ministry of Commerce in Afghanistan. Soon he got promotions and he went through different positions in the Foreign Trade Department of Ministry of Commerce. He worked as Commercial Attaché in Pakistan and also In Iran. Because of the terrible political and security situation in Afghanistan, he had to leave his beloved country in 1998 for Holland. In Holland he learned the Dutch language, studied accounting and computers. Because of his ambition to learn more, he moved to Great Britain in 2007. After learning English he started his study at master level at Coventry University in the United Kingdom. After two years, in November 2010, he fi nished his study and achieved a Master Diploma in Terrorism, International Organised Crime and Global Security from that university. During his master studies he carried out research in the modern method and wrote a number of short and long essays and a dissertation which he wants to publish as a collection of his work for academic use and for whom is interested in modern research, referencing and interesting on the topics which are relevant to Afghanistan’s confl ict. ziasais@hotmail.com