In search of the enemy. The story about a terrorist who wanted to be a friend.

2019-01-30

AFGHANISTAN - During a visit to Dutch troops in Afghanistan in 2006, journalist Bette Dam discovered how little the military knew about their enemy. She left the military camp to investigate the feared taliban leader mullah Omar.

In search of the enemy is the report of a breathtaking journey, which led her to the most dangerous parts of Afghanistan to learn all about Omar's first Koran lessons, the jihad against the Soviet Union, his revolt against violent warlords, his hope for help of the international community and his bitterness about what the Americans have been doing since 2001 in his country.

Dam is the first Western journalist to reconstruct Omar's life and makes pioneering discoveries about a regime, about which many assumptions exist, but that has not been studied in a concrete way. Based on risky fieldwork and thorough research, Dam places the Taliban in a new perspective. She shows how the Taliban, within the framework of the war on terror, were made by Western governments and media from potential ally into an enemy that should be annihilated. Dam describes how a country and its population were disrupted with brute force and ended up in a war that was unnecessary.

Bette Dam

The Dutch journalist Bette Dam lived in Afghanistan for four years, where she worked as a correspondent for NRC Handelsblad and Radio Netherlands Worldwide.