E. O'Ballance – författare

Forming minorities in five adjacent countries for 74 years, Kurds have been fighting for independence or autonomy, against governments reluctant to accede either. The Kurdish saga is one of periodic insurrections, partial victories, misfortunes, defeats, betrayal, national repression, clashing personalities, changing allegiances and an unusual mixture of heroism and expendiency. Kurds used governments, and governments used Kurds. A good insight is given into both political and military aspects of the struggle, and of the motives and machinations of major personalities involved.

The sixteen-year long civil war in Lebanon was caused by dissatisfaction over the distribution of political power. The system favoured Christians who fought to eject Palestinian armed forces, which sought to use the country as a spring board for attacks into adjacent Israel. Western intervention was repelled by suicide-bombing attacks. Lebanese Christians and Muslims sub-divided to fight each other. Dominated by competing war lords, this civil war was notable for massacres, treachery, atrocities, kidnapping, assassination, changing alliances of convenience, and invasions.

Forming minorities in five adjacent countries for 74 years, Kurds have been fighting for independence or autonomy against governments reluctant to accede either. The Kurdish saga is one of periodic insurrections, partial victories, misfortunes, defeats, betrayal, national repression, clashing personalities, changing allegiances and a mixture of heroism and expediency. This book examines both political and military aspects of the struggle, and of the motives and machinations of key figures involved.

The Iranian Connection is the network of embassies and diplomatic staffs spread throughout the world that support Islamic Fundamentalist terrorism, controlled by `Dept 15', in Tehran, the Iranian government denying all implication. When he came to power in 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini used terrorism to consolidate his position, realised its potential, and exploited it to further his dream to `March to Jerusalem', by assassinating his enemies, supporting like-minded national terrorist groups, causing huge explosions at Israeli embassies, organising aircraft hijacking and hostage-taking. The Iranian Connection is supporting insurrection in Algeria and the Israeli Occupied Territories, the object being to install governments that will rule according to the Koran and Muslim custom.

The sixteen-year long civil war in Lebanon was caused by dissatisfaction over the distribution of political power. Dominated by competing war lords, this civil war was notable for massacres, treachery, atrocities, kidnapping, assassination, changing alliances of convenience, and invasions.

This is the account of a huge Central African country, almost completely unprepared for liberation from colonial rule in 1960, plunged into the anarchy of factional struggles for central power, against a background of regional separatism. A UN force stepped in to prevent the mineral rich province of Katanga from breaking away and stayed for nearly four years, after which quarrelling warlords fought for central power, or for or against separatism. In 1965, Mobutu came to power, ruling as a dictator his Single Party State, until he was finally toppled in 1997 by a Tutsi backed invasion force led by Kabila.

Sudan, the largest country in Africa, gained independence in 1956. Its population divided itself into Arab Muslim and Black African camps and, almost immediately, a 16-year civil war began. A second revolution broke in out 1983 when the governmant introduced Islamic Sharia law. This book provides a thorough chronicle of events in Sudan since Independance, drawing on first-hand interviews.