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First Casualty

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First Casualty

By: Toby Harnden
Narrated by: John Hopkins
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About this listen

 'Gripping ... A terrific action narrative' Max Hastings

'Reads like a Tom Clancy thriller, yet every word is true ... This is modern warfare close-up and raw' Andrew Roberts

Bestselling and Orwell Prize-winning author Toby Harnden tells the gripping and incredible story of the six-day battle that began the War in Afghanistan and how it set the scene for twenty years of conflict.

The West is in shock. Al-Qaeda has struck the US on 9/11 and thousands are dead.

Within weeks, UK Special Forces enter the fray in Afghanistan alongside the CIA's Team Alpha and US troops.

Victory is swift, but fragile. Hundreds of jihadists surrender and two operatives from Team Alpha enter Qala-i Jangi – the 'Fort of War' – to interrogate them. The prisoners revolt, one CIA man falls, and the other is trapped inside the fort. Seven members of the SBS – elite British Special Forces – volunteer for the rescue force and race into danger and the unknown.

The six-day battle that follows proves to be one of the bloodiest of the Afghanistan war as the SBS and their American comrades face an enemy determined to die in the mud citadel.

Superbly researched, First Casualty is based on unprecedented access to the CIA, SBS, and US Special Forces. Orwell Prize-winning author Toby Harnden recounts the gripping story of that first battle in Afghanistan and how the haunting foretelling it contained – unreliable allies, ethnic rivalries, suicide attacks, and errant bombs – was ignored, fueling the twenty-year conflict to come.©2021 Toby Harnden (P)2021 Welbeck Publishing Group Freedom & Security Military Politics & Government War & Crisis War Espionage Iran Middle East
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a great incite into the first months of the afghanistan war, well worth the time to read.

excellent book

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Listened to Toby on both Jack Carr’s and Andy Stumpf’s podcasts. Prompted me to buy the audiobook. Highly recommended. It’s a tough story but one definitely worth the telling. In the aftermath of Allied forces leaving Afghanistan, this takes us back to the beginning of the campaign.

For anyone interested in Afghanistan, this is a must read.

Excellent read

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Along with the Looming Tower and Directorate S, this beautiful written and comprehensively researched memoir and account of the people, places, events and consequences of opening days in the GWOT is deserving of being essential reading god anyone trying to know and understand this period of our history .

Essential history

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Comprehensively researched, wonderfully framed and honestly told. This book is for anyone that wants to know the real, unvarnished account of the U.S initial steps in the Middle East after 9/11. A must for anyone interested in modern political science, highly recommend.

Very good

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It went on and on about really insignificant details. Nothing like I expected given the title. Trust me do not buy

Most boring book I have ever listened to

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