''The Wrong Enemy: America in Afghanistan, 2001–2014'' is a 2014 book by

Carlotta Gall Carlotta Gall is a British journalist and author. She covered Afghanistan and Pakistan for ''The New York Times'' for twelve years. She is currently the Istanbul bureau chief for The New York Times covering Turkey. Career Summary Daughter of ve ...

. In the book, she argues that the United States and its allies have been focused on stopping the terrorist activities of

al-Qaeda Al-Qaeda (; , ) is an Islamic extremism, Islamic extremist organization composed of Salafist jihadists. Its members are mostly composed of Arab, Arabs, but also include other peoples. Al-Qaeda has mounted attacks on civilian and military ta ...

and its

Taliban The Taliban (; ps, طالبان, ṭālibān, lit=students or 'seekers'), which also refers to itself by its state (polity), state name, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a Deobandi Islamic fundamentalism, Islamic fundamentalist, m ...

supporters in Afghanistan, but that focus should instead have been on antagonistic forces in Pakistan. She claims that the Taliban exists and

Osama bin Laden Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden (10 March 1957 – 2 May 2011) was a Saudi-born extremist militant who founded al-Qaeda and served as its leader from 1988 until Killing of Osama bin Laden, his death in 2011. Ideologically a Pan-Islamism ...

was able to survive for so long because Pakistan's government and the people at the Inter-Services Intelligence provided support to them. Gall argues, using quotations from the area's leaders, that the US should have fought al-Qaeda and the Taliban inside Pakistan instead of going to war in Iraq in 2003.

References

2014 non-fiction books Books about Afghanistan Books about Pakistan Works about the Taliban Houghton Mifflin books {{US-poli-book-stub