Ahmed Rashid, award-winning Pakistani journalist and author, presented a public lecture, “Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Terror” on Monday, November 21, 2005, in Dodds Auditorium, Robertson Hall on the Princeton University campus. The lecture was co-sponsored by LISD and the Woodrow Wilson School.

Over the past twenty-five years, Rashid has been the Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia correspondent for several international news publications including the Daily Telegraph, The Far Eastern Economic Review, The Wall Street Journal, and The Nation. He is a regular contributor to the BBC and CNN, and is the author of three best-selling books, including Taliban: Islam, Oil, and the New Great Game in Central Asia (2000), and Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia (2002).

Rashid has won numerous awards in the United States, Britain, and Pakistan, including the 2001 Award for Courage in journalism by the Human Rights Society of Pakistan. He established the Open Media Fund for Afghanistan (OMFA) in 2002, a non-governmental organization that provides support for newspapers, magazines, and other print media in Afghanistan. In September 2002 at the invitation of the United Nations Secretary General, Kofi Annan, he became the first journalist to address the UN General Assembly. He has lectured widely around the world on Islamic fundamentalism and South and Central Asian Affairs.