THE PENTAGON has launched an audacious attempt to buy every single copy of the first print run of a new book which claims to expose secret military operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

‘Operation Dark Heart‘, written by Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Shaffer, was released on August 31 and says that United States forces missed an opportunity to defeat the Taliban.

But despite the book having been on general release for a fortnight already, the Department of Defence is now attempting to secure every single one of the 10,000 copies of the original print run, and is in talks with St Martin’s Press, its publisher, to buy the entire print run and pulp it.

The army had already cleared Shaffer’s book, written about his time based in Bagram (near Kabul) in 2003, after recommending some minor changes – only for the intelligence services to completely overrule the army when they saw the book’s text.

While the publisher is willing to entertain the idea of selling the books to the Pentagon – sales are sales, after all – it is more concerned with whether the Pentagon will allow a redacted version of the book to be published afterward.

It is reported, however, that much of the detail the Pentagon is fussing over may be as much as 20 years old, or in fact be in the public domain already.

In the meantime, advance copies of the book have become a collectors’ item – with one copy of the book selling for $2,025 (€1,576) on eBay last night,