Born in 1960 in Peshawar, the Northwestern Frontier Province of Pakistan, Imtiaz Gul has covered Afghanistan/Tribal Areas/Kashmir militancy extensively since 1988 and traveled the length and breadth of the mentioned areas. Gul's Afghanistan travels brought him in contact with a number of Pakistani officials from different departments and agencies to trace and analyze Pakistan's involvement with different Afghan factions.
Background
Born in 1960 in Peshawar, the Northwestern Frontier Province of Pakistan, Imtiaz Gul has covered Afghanistan/Tribal Areas/Kashmir militancy extensively since 1988, and traveled the length and breadth of the mentioned areas.
Gul's Afghanistan travels brought him in contact with a number of Pakistani officials from different departments and agencies to trace and analyse Pakistan's involvement with different Afghan factions.
Being a Pashtoon, Gul also saw the Afghan Taliban from a very close range and produced scores of inside stories on the radical militia for The Friday Times as well as the German Press Agency and the Deutsche Welle.
Gul's book " The Unholy Nexus; Pak-Afghan relations under the Taliban, published in July 2002, was also the result of these frequent contacts with officials and warring factions. He also edited a book on " Islam and Liberalism", soon after the U.S-led coalition unleashed the so-called War Against Terrorism.
Besides representing the Deutsche Welle, the Voice of Germany, and heading the Pakistan Bureau of the German Press Agency – dpa until September 2006, -Imtiaz Gul has also been broadcasting with the CNN between 1998 - 2000, and with the Hong Kong-based Star World TV, and the National Public Radion in the United States.
Besides, the author has been regularly contributing to mass-circulation national daily "THE NEWS", and has been the Islamanbad Correspondent for Pakistan's most prestigious weekly The Friday Times since 1995.
Gul also visited Egypt, Israel and Libya in May 2006 and reported for Deutsche Welle on the conflict there.
Biography from ImtiazGul.com
Book presentation
The Heinrich Böll Stiftung North America and the New America Foundation were pleased to host Imtiaz Gul, a Pakistani journalist and author of the newly-released book The Most Dangerous Place: Pakistan's Lawless Frontier, which surveys Pakistan's wild tribal regions that serve as headquarters of al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
Featured Speaker:
Imtiaz Gul
Author, The Most Dangerous Place: Pakistan's Lawless Frontier
Founder and Director, Center for Research and Security Studies
Moderator:
Peter Bergen
Co-Director
Counterterrorism Strategy Initiative
Senior Research Fellow
New America Foudation
Author, The Osama bin Laden I Know
Click here for a video of the book presentation at the New America Foundation (6/16/2010, 74 minutes)
Click here for Imtiaz Gul's interview on the Diane Rehm Show (6/14/2010, 52 minutes)