Godfather of Terror

Author: Lynne O’Donnell

Genres: Subject-Led Non-fiction

Serious non-fiction by Lynne O’Donell. The author is a reknowned, admired and award-winning journalist, considered a world authority on geopolitics and Afghanistan, Godfather of Terror is the only book you need to read to understand how international politics works and why countries like Afghanistan suffer horribly throughout history.

Her book is a high-stakes, fast-paced, non-fiction thriller that tells the true story of Haji Bashir Noorzai, the Afghan drug lord who built the Taliban, fuelled its heroin war, and now controls Afghanistan’s economy and mineral wealth as America and China battle for global supremacy.

Noorzai turned opium into a war machine, transformed the Taliban into his personal enforcers, and flooded the West with heroin.

Caught in a years-long DEA sting, he was sentenced to life in New York—only to be released in a secret 2022 hostage swap. Back in Kandahar, he resumed his reign, hailed as a kingmaker and trafficker of heroin and meth, while guarding Afghanistan’s trillion-dollar mineral wealth.

This is the defining account of how one man shaped global history.

“a must-read… the true, thrilling story of Haji Bashir Noorzai.”
- James Patterson

“O'Donnell exposes the nexus of criminality, terrorism, corruption, and the heroin economy… an urgent, compelling account of unaccountable power.”
- General David Petraeus