Afghanistan: Agony of a Nation - Tapa dura

This book is an account of Sandy Gall's last trip to Afghanistan in 1986 to report the war. It tells of his journey, with all its hardships and dangers, as well as explaining the background to the war including some dramatic pictures of the fighting. Sandy Gall chose to revisit the man he regards as the outstanding commander in Afghanistan, Ahmed Shah Masud, who is trying to organize resistance to the Russians on a regional and eventually national scale. The author views the war as Russia's Vietnam and believes it merits much wider attention. He believes it has been largely neglected because of the difficulties of the terrain and the length of time it takes to get to the remoter areas. For his work in Afghanistan, Sandy Gall - a Reuter correspondent for ten years and ITN "trouble shooter" since 1963 - was awarded the Lawrence of Arabia Memorial Medal in 1987.

Sandy Gall was born in Penang, Malaya, went to school at Glenalmond in Scotland, and studied French and German at Aberdeen University. As a Reuter correspondent for ten years and then as an ITN 'trouble shooter' since 1963, he has travelled all over the world. He covered the Congo war for Reuters in 1960-63 and had one of his worst experiences in Uganda in 1972 when he was thrown into jail by Idi Amin's soldiers and forced to run across the jail compound with a sub-machine gun on his back. He survived to tell the story on ITN. He has also reported wars and revolutions in the Far East, the Middle East and Europe. He is now a regular News at Ten newscaster, but he still likes to go out on foreign assignments. He was in Saigon in 1975 when the city fell to the Communists, and returned in 1980 to Vietnam and Kampuchea. He visited Afghanistan, in August 1982, when he and a TV crew spent two months with the guerrillas in the Panjsher Valley during a heavy Russian offensive. His TV documentary: Afghanistan - Behind Russian Lines was widely acclaimed in Britain. He returned in 1984 and made another documentary: Afghanistan: Allah Against the Gunships; and again in 1986 to make his third film on the war: Afghanistan: Agony of a Nation. Sandy Gall was Rector of Aberdeen University for three years (1978-81) and is an honorary doctor (LLD) of that university. He lives in Penshurst, Kent, with his wife Eleanor and their four children, Fiona, Alexander, Carlotta and Michaela. For his work in Afghanistan, Sandy Gall was awarded the Lawrence of Arabia Memorial Medal, 1987, by HRH the Prince of Wales, as Patron of the Royal Society for Asian Affairs.