Steve Coll, New America Foundation President, Stepping Down, Writing 'Ghost Wars' Sequel

NEW YORK -- New America Foundation president Steve Coll plans to step down from his post at the public policy institute later this year.

A former Washington Post managing editor and current staff writer at the New Yorker, Coll has led the non-profit, non-partisan organization for the past five years. Once a successor is found, Coll will become senior fellow with New America's National Security Studies Program and begin work on a follow-up to his Pulitzer Prize-winning 2004 book, "Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001."

Word of a sequel to the widely acclaimed "Ghost Wars" came in a release on his plans to step down. And in an email, Coll explained where the next volume picks up:

The first book ended on September 10, 2001. For a while I resisted taking on a second volume that would start with the attacks because I wasn't sure where the ending would be. Now that the United States has set 2014 as an end to combat operations in Afghanistan, I think I can see how to try a second volume that is very much located in the subjects and narrative approaches of the first. As with the first volume, I'm planning to concentrate on the intelligence war -- but not limit myself to that. It's early days of what will be a multi-year project, so I have a lot of work to do.

Coll has signed on with Penguin Press, which published "Ghost Wars" along with Coll's "The Bin Ladens" and "Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power." A publication date for the "multi-year project" has not yet been set.

Meanwhile, Atlantic Media owner David Bradley will chair the board-led search for Coll's successor at New America.