Quotes from Carlotta Gall

Ashfaq Parvez Kayani had expounded: the Taliban, or specifically the Haqqanis, were an asset that Pakistan needed to keep in order to have a strong ally in Afghanistan when the American and international forces left.4 At the core of Pakistan's thinking was an obsessive desire to dominate Afghanistan in order to protect its own rear flank from India. In that way of thinking, the Taliban were guarantors of Pakistan's national strategic interests. As

I flew into a rage and berated them for barging into a woman's bedroom and using physical violence. The English-speaking officer who appeared to be in charge told me that I was not permitted to visit the neighborhood of Pashtunabad (as we had), and that it was forbidden to interview members of the Taliban (as we had tried