Dr. Antonio Giustozzi is an independent researcher born in Ravenna, Italy, who took his PhD at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).

He is the author of several articles and papers on Afghanistan, as well as of five books, War, politics and society in Afghanistan, 1978-1992 (Georgetown University Press), Koran, Kalashnikov and laptop: the Neo-Taliban insurgency, 2002-7 (Columbia University Press), Empires of mud: war and warlords in Afghanistan (Columbia University Press), Policing Afghanistan (with M. Ishaqzada, Columbia University Press, 2013) and The army of Afghanistan (Hurst, 2016). He also authored a volume on the role of coercion and violence in state-building, The Art of Coercion (Columbia University Press, 2011), one on advisory missions (Missionaries of modernity, Hurst, 2016) and edited a volume on the Taliban, Decoding the New Taliban (Columbia University Press, 2009), featuring contributions by specialists from different backgrounds, and one on DDR processes, Post-conflict Demobilisation, Disarmament and Reintegration: bringing state-building back in (Ashgate, 2012).

He carried out various unpublished research project on drug smuggling and corruption. He is currently publishing a new book on the Islamic State in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia and is starting a new project on people’s smuggling from Afghanistan.