The Afghan

The Afghan is a 2006 thriller novel by Frederick Forsyth, and concerns a planned Al Qaeda terrorist attack to take place against an unspecified target. As with other Forsyth novels, the full details of the plot are not revealed until the end. The story takes place in Indonesia, Pakistan, Guantanamo Bay, Trinidad and Tobago, Washington state and onboard various ships sailing the high seas.

Plot summary

Sometime before the events of the story take place, a joint MI6/CIA/ISI raid against al Qaeda (AQ) operatives in Pakistan uncovers documents concerning a planned, but largely cryptic, terrorist attack. This raises concerns and triggers further investigations authorised at the most senior level.

Mike Martin, who previously appeared in the Forsyth novel The Fist of God, is now a retired SAS officer. Educated in Iraq and physically able to pass for an Afghan (his maternal grandmother was a Bengali-Indian named Indira Bose, misspelled Bohse in the book) who contributed to his chestnut-brown complexion which somehow makes him look like an Arab (or later on, Afghan) Martin has a near-perfect command of Arabic and is also familiar with Afghanistan and the Pashtun language, Pashto. He is chosen (due entirely to an overheard gaffe by his brother who is a member of the expert "Koran committee" of academics specialising in ancient texts) to infiltrate the highest echelons of AQ, by impersonating an AQ prisoner, Izmat Khan, currently held at Guantanamo Bay. In the story it...
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