Sandy Gall has made three trips to Afghanistan to report the war there: in 1982, 1984 and again in 1986. This book is an account of his last journey and what he found. He chose to revisit the man he believes is the outstanding commander in Afghanistan: Ahmed Shah Masud, a dashing Tajik who is trying to organise resistance to the Russians on a regional, and eventually national scale.

Sandy Gall believes the war is Russia’s Vietnam and merits much wider attention. He feels it has been largely neglected because of the difficulties of the terrain - mountain passes of 15,000 feet are commonplace - and the length of time it takes to reach the remoter areas.

This book tells the story of the journey, with all its hardships and dangers. On the inward journey, for example, the camera horse fell in a river, submerging the precious film which was, luckily, sufficiently waterproofed to survive the drenching. It also explains the background to the war and includes some dramatic accounts of the fighting.

For his work in Afghanistan, Sandy Gall was awarded the Lawrence of Arabia Memorial Medal, 1987, by H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, as Patron of the Royal Society for Asian Affairs.

In the summer of 1982, Sandy Gall set off for Afghanistan on what turned out to be the hardest assignment of his life. During his career as a reporter he had covered plenty of wars and revolutions before, but he had never been required to walk all the way to an assignment and all the way back again, dodging Russian bombs en route. But this was precisely what happened as he and a television crew walked from Pakistan to the Panjsher Valley—a journey which took two weeks. Their goal was the stronghold of the Resistance leader Masud who, although barely twenty-eight years old, was the best known and most effective of the Afghan guerrillas.

By late August, Russian fighter bombers were pounding the Panjsher as a prelude to a full-scale ground attack, and Sandy Gall and his companions ran smack into it. The bombing proved so intense that they were separated from their equipment for three weeks and began to worry that they would have to abandon the film and withdraw to Pakistan. Miraculously, the camera made a last-minute appearance and the highly-acclaimed documentary was shot. The next problem was to get out, as their inward route was now closed. Masud redirected them through the icy mountain passes of Nuristan, more than 14,000 feet high.

In this enthralling book, Sandy Gall recounts his adventures and tells how he emerged at the end of October, exhausted and much thinner but triumphant and full of admiration for the courage of the mujahideen. This is his tribute to those splendid fighters, pitting themselves relentlessly against Soviet might.

As the Western world waits for the announcement that Russia will withdraw her troops from Afghanistan, an undercover operation is mounted in Whitehall which is designed to increase the difficulties of Russia’s occupying force in the bitter war against Afghan guerrilla bands.

Mike Wills, a disgraced - and therefore expendable - former SAS officer, is teamed with a Russian defector, Anatoly Gradinsky. The two men are to be sent secretly into Afghanistan on a sabotage mission. Their target: the Salang Tunnel, on the vital supply line between Russia and her troops.

The television newscaster and reporter Sandy Gall has travelled extensively in Afghanistan and has made three highly-acclaimed television films on the guerrilla that had been fought there for the last nine years.

The author has set the plot of this gripping novel against the upheaval of the final Russian withdrawal.