Olivier Weber (born 1958) is a French writer, novelist and reporter at large, known primarily for his coverage of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
[1] He is an assistant professor at the Institut d'études politiques de Paris, president of the Prize Joseph Kessel and today ambassador of France at large.
[18] He participated at the operations of saving the boat people, in the China Sea, with volunteers of the international NGO Doctors of the World (Médecins du Monde).
He has also defended the Afghan mujahideen during the war against the Soviet army and then against the pro-communist regime of Najibullah and had traveled several times with the rebels and Commander Massoud.
His denunciation of human trafficking by the Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka and disposal of their prisoners, after several trips to the bush,[19] brought him new threats.
In August 2001, he traveled to Central Asia to launch a humanitarian mission in the Panjshir Valley and bring to Ahmad Shah Massoud proofs of his book The Afghan Hawk.
His testimony and his denunciation of the Taliban regime and the rise of Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia have earned him death threats.
[23][24] He has denounced the impunity of the Khmer Rouge in the mountains of western Cambodia, after meeting the underground movement leaders Ieng Sary and Khieu Samphan, both former deputies of Pol Pot.
He has completed from 1983 to 2011 more than 20 terrain-researches as a war observer in countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, Algeria, Syria, Erytrea, Sudan, Iran, Sri Lanka, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan.