Helmand Province

About the Book

Alexander is on a singular mission to Afghanistan to find Osama Bin Laden and bring him to justice. Elsa, his support network, is struck by the uninhabited wilderness of Afghanistan and the dramatic, even transcendental, information gained by Alex in a very brief space of time. Brooding over this complex problem meant that in the drifting darkness, a reassurance of a safety line had arrived like a bolt from the blue. “Helmand Province” is inspired by research into the Afghanistan conflict and the capture of Osama Bin Laden. This book is well researched from 1993 to 2012, which formed the time frame of the Afghanistan wars. These wars encompassed the civil war and the use of the Taliban in the 1990s to the launch of Operation Enduring Freedom and latterly the ongoing war on terrorism. The completed works follow on a central theme of the rise and fall of Osama Bin Laden from Liberia in Africa, where he was trained to his journey after 9/11, hiding in the caves of Afghanistan as a fugitive from the American military. Many journalists and active agents died in suicide bombings and attacks while traveling as part of the process as eradication teams in wars in Jalabad, Helmand province, and Benghazi in the region. The book captures some aspects of this time in a fictionalized form. The war it has been shown has changed the lives of many families born in the country itself and of the soldiers sent to fight there.

About the Author

The author was born in Kashmir, India, and her father served as an officer with the Eighth Gurkha Rifles with the British and Indian Armies. The author’s uncles both served in the world wars. Her paternal uncle was a great influence in her life and served as a naval attaché under President Eisenhower. She married an air force officer and pilot with whom she traveled to many places in Asia, Europe, Africa, Far East, and the Americas. She primarily trained as a scientist, a molecular geneticist, and conducted research in cell membrane genetics, signaling and transduction systems, collaborating with Jefferson Medical School in Philadelphia, Sloane Kettering New York, and NIH Bethesda. After obtaining her doctorate, she taught and researched extensively in molecular genetics and biomedical sciences. She entered the legal profession, trained as a lawyer with a highly reputable international firm, and completed her masters in intellectual property law, earning a first with distinction in her dissertation. She later completed a master’s course in international relations and politics, which serves as a foundation for many of her books. The author has two sons, one who is an officer with the RAF married to a British Airways pilot and first officer. The second son is training for a career in aviation as a trainee pilot, hoping to follow in the well-established family tradition, but engages an additional passion for Formula One racing. The author is currently an entrant with the faculty of advocates and college of Justice in Edinburgh, Scotland.