Ahmed Rashid is a highly respected scholar, author, and analyst of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and U.S. relations. British educated, Rashid spent ten years in the hills of Balochistan, western Pakistan attempting to organize an uprising against the Pakistani military dictatorships of Ayub Khan and Yahya Khan. He ended his guerrilla fighting days frustrated and defeated and turned his attentions to writing about his homeland.

He has been the Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia Correspondent for the Daily Telegraph for more than 20 years and a correspondent for Far Eastern Economic Review. He also writes for the Wall Street Journal, The Nation, Daily Times (Pakistan) and academic journals. He appears regularly on international TV and radio networks such as CNN and BBC World. His commentary also appears in the Washington Post's Post Global segment.

Rashid's 2000 book, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia, was a New York Times bestseller for five weeks, translated into 22 languages, and has sold 1.5 million copies since the September 11, 2001 attacks. The book was used extensively by American analysts in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.