While popular accounts of warfare, particularly of guerrilla wars and insurgencies, favor the roles of leaders or ideology, social-scientific analyses of these ... » 

While popular accounts of warfare, particularly of guerrilla wars and insurgencies, favor the roles of leaders or ideology, social-scientific analyses of these wars focus on aggregate categories such as ethnic groups, religious affiliations, socioeconomic classes, or civilizations. Challenging these constructions, Abdulkader H.Sinno closely examines the fortunes of the various factions in Afhanistan, including the mujahideen and the Taliban, that have been fighting each other and foreign armies since the 1979 Soviet invasion. Focusing on the organization of the combatants, Sinno offers a new understanding of the course and outcome of such conflicts. «