Experts may not always agree with his analysis or prognostications, but consensus is that he definitely knows wassup in Pakistan. He's been doing it for so long that maybe he gets a little arrogant at times towards newbies in the field. Prolly if you are looking for a primer one could not chose a better author.....

I was just re-reading Dexter Filkins' New Yorker article on the murder of my favorite Pakistani journalist, Syed Saleem Shahzad. Shahzad was much more of a muckraker and ambulance chaser than Rashid, who is more wonkish. Anyhew Rashid talked to Filkins for the article, what he said gives you an idea about where he stands in the spectrum now:

The journalist best known outside Pakistan is Ahmed Rashid, the author of several books on Pakistan and Afghanistan; his book “Taliban” was a best-seller in the U.S. He has published dozens of revelatory reports on the military and intelligence services. Rashid says that he has been threatened repeatedly by the I.S.I. over the years, and was once warned personally by Musharraf. Rashid’s colleagues believe that his prominence in the West has protected him; he writes regularly for The New York Review of Books and the Financial Times.

These days, Rashid says, he has had to be more careful. After a recent threat, he stayed out of Pakistan for a couple of months before returning to his home, in Lahore. “There is a red line in Pakistan—there has always been a red line,” Rashid said. “But, after Saleem Shahzad, no one knows where the red line is anymore.” He went on, “It’s debilitating. You can’t really go out and report. Sometimes you just sit and think about what is going to happen.”

Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/09/19/110919fa_fact_filkins#ixzz2Owkg99Eg