<P class=MsoNormal>In <I>The Last Warlord</I>, scholar Brian Glyn Williams takes Westerners inside the world of General Abdul Rashid Dostum, one of the most powerful of the Afghan warlords who have dominated the country since the Soviet invasion. Based on lengthy interviews with Dostum and his family and subcommanders, as well as local chieftains, mullahs, elders, Taliban enemies and prisoners of war, and women’s rights activists, <I>The Last Warlord</I> tells the story of Dostum’s rise to power from peasant villager to the man who fought a long and bitter war against the Taliban and Al Qaeda fanatics who sought to repress his people. The book details how, after 9/11, the CIA contacted the mysterious Afghan-Mongol warrior to help US Special Forces wage a covert war in the mountains of Afghanistan that ended in a stunning victory. It sheds light on how the desperate Special Forces–Afghan cavalry campaign succeeded against all odds in liberating Afghanistan's holiest shrine and brought warriors from vastly different cultures together to fight their common Taliban enemy. <I>The Last Warlord</I> shows that, far from serving as a mere backdrop for American heroics, it was the horse-mounted descendents of Genghis Khan that allowed the American military to overthrow the Taliban regime<U></U> in just two months.