Hamid Karzai (Major World Leaders)

Modern World Leaders

Hamid Karzai

Modern World Leaders Tony Blair George W. Bush Hugo Chávez Jacques Chirac Hamid Karzai Hosni Mubarak Pervez Musharraf Pope Benedict XVI Pope John Paul II Vladimir Putin The Saudi Royal Family Ariel Sharon Viktor Yushchenko

Modern World Leaders

Hamid Karzai Dennis Abrams

Hamid Karzai Copyright ©2007 by Infobase Publishing All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher. For information contact: Chelsea House An imprint of Infobase Publishing 132 West 31st Street New York, NY 10001 ISBN-10: 0-7910-9267-4 ISBN-13: 978-0-7910-9267-5 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Abrams, Dennis, 1960Hamid Karzai / Dennis Abrams. p. cm. — (Modern world leaders) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-7910-9267-4 (hardcover) 1. Karzai, Hamid, 1957- 2. Afghanistan—Politics and government—20013. Presidents—Afghanistan—Biography. I. Title. DS371.43.K37A47 2007 958.104’7092—dc22 [B] 2006032695 Chelsea House books are available at special discounts when purchased in bulk quantities for businesses, associations, institutions, or sales promotions. Please call our Special Sales Department in New York at (212) 967-8800 or (800) 322-8755. You can find Chelsea House on the World Wide Web at http://www.chelseahouse.com Text design by Erik Lindstrom Cover design by Takeshi Takehashi Printed in the United States of America Bang EJB 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 This book is printed on acid-free paper. All links and Web addresses were checked and verified to be correct at the time of publication. Because of the dynamic nature of the Web, some addresses and links may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid

Table of Contents Foreword: On Leadership

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Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

A New Beginning Roundabout of the Ancient World A Battle for Influence A Time of Turmoil Resistance Taliban Rule 9/11 Changes Everything Rebuilding a Nation

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Chronology

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Bibliography

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Further Reading

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Index

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Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.

On Leadership

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eadership, it may be said, is really what makes the world go round. Love no doubt smoothes the passage; but love is a private transaction between consenting adults. Leadership is a public transaction with history. The idea of leadership affirms the capacity of individuals to move, inspire, and mobilize masses of people so that they act together in pursuit of an end. Sometimes leadership serves good purposes, sometimes bad; but whether the end is benign or evil, great leaders are those men and women who leave their personal stamp on history. Now, the very concept of leadership implies the proposition that individuals can make a difference. This proposition has never been universally accepted. From classical times to the present day, eminent thinkers have regarded individuals as no more than the agents and pawns of larger forces, whether the gods and goddesses of the ancient world or, in the modern era, race, class, nation, the dialectic, the will of the people, the spirit of the times, history itself. Against such forces, the individual dwindles into insignificance. So contends the thesis of historical determinism. Tolstoy’s great novel War and Peace offers a famous statement of the case. Why, Tolstoy asked, did millions of men in the Napoleonic Wars, denying their human feelings and their common sense, move back and forth across Europe slaughtering their fellows? “The war,” Tolstoy answered, “was bound to happen simply because it was bound to happen.” All prior history determined it. As for leaders, they, Tolstoy said, “are but the labels that serve to give a name to an end and, like labels, they have the least possible



“ON LEADERSHIP” connection with the event.” The greater the leader, “the more conspicuous the inevitability and the predestination of every act he commits.” The leader, said Tolstoy, is “the slave of history.” Determinism takes many forms. Marxism is the determinism of class. Nazism the determinism of race. But the idea of men and women as the slaves of history runs athwart the deepest human instincts. Rigid determinism abolishes the idea of human freedom—the assumption of free choice that underlies every move we make, every word we speak, every thought we think. It abolishes the idea of human responsibility, since it is manifestly unfair to reward or punish people for actions that are by definition beyond their control. No one can live consistently by any deterministic creed. The Marxist states prove this themselves by their extreme susceptibility to the cult of leadership. More than that, history refutes the idea that individuals make no difference. In December 1931, a British politician crossing Fifth Avenue in New York City between 76th and 77th streets around 10:30 p.m. looked in the wrong direction and was knocked down by an automobile—a moment, he later recalled, of a man aghast, a world aglare: “I do not understand why I was not broken like an eggshell or squashed like a gooseberry.” Fourteen months later an American politician, sitting in an open car in Miami, Florida, was fired on by an assassin; the man beside him was hit. Those who believe that individuals make no difference to history might well ponder whether the next two decades would have been the same had Mario Constasino’s car killed Winston Churchill in 1931 and Giuseppe Zangara’s bullet killed Franklin Roosevelt in 1933. Suppose, in addition, that Lenin had died of typhus in Siberia in 1895 and that Hitler had been killed on the western front in 1916. What would the twentieth century have looked like now? For better or for worse, individuals do make a difference. “The notion that a people can run itself and its affairs anonymously,” wrote the philosopher William James, “is now well known to be the silliest of absurdities. Mankind does nothing save through initiatives on the part of inventors, great or small,





FOREWORD and imitation by the rest of us—these are the sole factors in human progress. Individuals of genius show the way, and set the patterns, which common people then adopt and follow.” Leadership, James suggests, means leadership in thought as well as in action. In the long run, leaders in thought may well make the greater difference to the world. “The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong,” wrote John Maynard Keynes, “are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. . . . The power of vested interests is vastly exaggerated compared with the gradual encroachment of ideas.” But, as Woodrow Wilson once said, “Those only are leaders of men, in the general eye, who lead in action. . . . It is at their hands that new thought gets its translation into the crude language of deeds.” Leaders in thought often invent in solitude and obscurity, leaving to later generations the tasks of imitation. Leaders in action—the leaders portrayed in this series—have to be effective in their own time. And they cannot be effective by themselves. They must act in response to the rhythms of their age. Their genius must be adapted, in a phrase from William James, “to the receptivities of the moment.” Leaders are useless without followers. “There goes the mob,” said the French politician, hearing a clamor in the streets. “I am their leader. I must follow them.” Great leaders turn the inchoate emotions of the mob to purposes of their own. They seize on the opportunities of their time, the hopes, fears, frustrations, crises, potentialities. They succeed when events have prepared the way for them, when the community is awaiting to be aroused, when they can provide the clarifying and organizing ideas. Leadership completes the circuit between the individual and the mass and thereby alters history. It may alter history for better or for worse. Leaders have been responsible for the most extravagant follies and most

“ON LEADERSHIP” monstrous crimes that have beset suffering humanity. They have also been vital in such gains as humanity has made in individual freedom, religious and racial tolerance, social justice, and respect for human rights. There is no sure way to tell in advance who is going to lead for good and who for evil. But a glance at the gallery of men and women in Modern World Leaders suggests some useful tests. One test is this: Do leaders lead by force or by persuasion? By command or by consent? Through most of history leadership was exercised by the divine right of authority. The duty of followers was to defer and to obey. “Theirs not to reason why/Theirs but to do and die.” On occasion, as with the so-called enlightened despots of the eighteenth century in Europe, absolutist leadership was animated by humane purposes. More often, absolutism nourished the passion for domination, land, gold, and conquest and resulted in tyranny. The great revolution of modern times has been the revolution of equality. “Perhaps no form of government,” wrote the British historian James Bryce in his study of the United States, The American Commonwealth, “needs great leaders so much as democracy.” The idea that all people should be equal in their legal condition has undermined the old structure of authority, hierarchy, and deference. The revolution of equality has had two contrary effects on the nature of leadership. For equality, as Alexis de Tocqueville pointed out in his great study Democracy in America, might mean equality in servitude as well as equality in freedom. “I know of only two methods of establishing equality in the political world,” Tocqueville wrote. “Rights must be given to every citizen, or none at all to anyone . . . save one, who is the master of all.” There was no middle ground “between the sovereignty of all and the absolute power of one man.” In his astonishing prediction of twentieth-century totalitarian dictatorship, Tocqueville explained how the revolution of equality could lead to the Führerprinzip and more terrible absolutism than the world had ever known.



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FOREWORD But when rights are given to every citizen and the sovereignty of all is established, the problem of leadership takes a new form, becomes more exacting than ever before. It is easy to issue commands and enforce them by the rope and the stake, the concentration camp and the gulag. It is much harder to use argument and achievement to overcome opposition and win consent. The Founding Fathers of the United States understood the difficulty. They believed that history had given them the opportunity to decide, as Alexander Hamilton wrote in the first Federalist Paper, whether men are indeed capable of basing government on “reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend . . . on accident and force.” Government by reflection and choice called for a new style of leadership and a new quality of followership. It required leaders to be responsive to popular concerns, and it required followers to be active and informed participants in the process. Democracy does not eliminate emotion from politics; sometimes it fosters demagoguery; but it is confident that, as the greatest of democratic leaders put it, you cannot fool all of the people all of the time. It measures leadership by results and retires those who overreach or falter or fail. It is true that in the long run despots are measured by results too. But they can postpone the day of judgment, sometimes indefinitely, and in the meantime they can do infinite harm. It is also true that democracy is no guarantee of virtue and intelligence in government, for the voice of the people is not necessarily the voice of God. But democracy, by assuring the right of opposition, offers built-in resistance to the evils inherent in absolutism. As the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr summed it up, “Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man’s inclination to justice makes democracy necessary.” A second test for leadership is the end for which power is sought. When leaders have as their goal the supremacy of a master race or the promotion of totalitarian revolution or the acquisition and exploitation of colonies or the protection of

“ON LEADERSHIP” greed and privilege or the preservation of personal power, it is likely that their leadership will do little to advance the cause of humanity. When their goal is the abolition of slavery, the liberation of women, the enlargement of opportunity for the poor and powerless, the extension of equal rights to racial minorities, the defense of the freedoms of expression and opposition, it is likely that their leadership will increase the sum of human liberty and welfare. Leaders have done great harm to the world. They have also conferred great benefits. You will find both sorts in this series. Even “good” leaders must be regarded with a certain wariness. Leaders are not demigods; they put on their trousers one leg after another just like ordinary mortals. No leader is infallible, and every leader needs to be reminded of this at regular intervals. Irreverence irritates leaders but is their salvation. Unquestioning submission corrupts leaders and demeans followers. Making a cult of a leader is always a mistake. Fortunately hero worship generates its own antidote. “Every hero,” said Emerson, “becomes a bore at last.” The single benefit the great leaders confer is to embolden the rest of us to live according to our own best selves, to be active, insistent, and resolute in affirming our own sense of things. For great leaders attest to the reality of human freedom against the supposed inevitabilities of history. And they attest to the wisdom and power that may lie within the most unlikely of us, which is why Abraham Lincoln remains the supreme example of great leadership. A great leader, said Emerson, exhibits new possibilities to all humanity. “We feed on genius. . . . Great men exist that there may be greater men.” Great leaders, in short, justify themselves by emancipating and empowering their followers. So humanity struggles to master its destiny, remembering with Alexis de Tocqueville: “It is true that around every man a fatal circle is traced beyond which he cannot pass; but within the wide verge of that circle he is powerful and free; as it is with man, so with communities.”

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C H A P T E R

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A New Beginning Tuesday, December 7, 2004, was a cold, overcast morning in Kabul,

the capital city of Afghanistan. But for 46-year-old Hamid Karzai and the people of Afghanistan, it was a day bright with hope and promise. Karzai was about to be inaugurated as the first democratically elected president in Afghanistan’s history. It was a true milestone for the Afghan people. As head of the powerful Popolzai subtribe, the group that had provided most of Afghanistan’s leaders since the 1770s, Karzai was born to be a leader, and actually had been serving as the country’s leader since December of 2001. He first served as chairman of the Afghan Interim Authority (AIA) for a sixmonth period. Then, he was elected president by a nationwide loya jirga (a traditional meeting of Afghanistan’s tribal leaders, representing every Afghan ethnic group). But today was different. Previously, Karzai had been named or appointed president

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A New Beginning

On October 9, 2004, Hamid Karzai was elected president of Afghanistan, becoming the first-ever democratically elected Afghan leader. In December of that year, Karzai was officially sworn in as president, an event that indicated a new beginning for the once-unstable nation. Above, Karzai is photographed in the capital city of Kabul, as he casts his ballot in the presidential election.

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HAMID KARZAI by a select group of people. This time, he’d been elected to the presidency by the entire nation. All eyes were upon him. The hopes and dreams of his exhausted and war-torn nation rested on his shoulders. The use of the clichéd phrase “war-torn” is, in fact, a bit of an understatement. Hamid Karzai was about to be inaugurated as the first elected president of a nation on the verge of collapse. Years of misrule, war, and chaos had helped to make Afghanistan one of the poorest nations on the planet, with up to two-thirds of the population living on less than two dollars a day. Millions of its citizens were living as refugees. Its cities had been heavily bombed. In the countryside, landmines were an ever-present danger. And all throughout the country, criminals and warlords ruled. “Chaotic” is a good word to describe Afghanistan’s recent political history. Since 1973 alone, it had seen its national leader deposed (1973), executed (1978), executed (1979), removed (1987), overthrown (1992), overthrown (1996), and finally, overthrown (2001). Afghanistan had been invaded by the Soviet Union in 1979. This brought about a 10-year revolt by the mujahideen (often defined as “holy warriors”) and forced nearly 5 million Afghans to flee their homes and become refugees in the neighboring countries of Iran and Pakistan. Following the Soviet defeat and withdrawal in 1999, six years of near-chaos followed, as various mujahideen factions, tribal groups, and warlords all fought and jockeyed for power. This turmoil led directly to the rise of the infamous Taliban. With its promises to bring order and stability to Afghanistan, the Taliban seized power in 1996, eventually controlling up to 90 percent of the country. (The remaining 10 percent, mostly the northeast section of the country, was largely controlled by the Northern Alliance.) As soon as it took power though, the Taliban imposed its strict interpretation of Islamic law on the country, banning, among other things, television and music,

A New Beginning children’s toys, kite flying, and the Internet. The Taliban also made it illegal for women to go to school, to work, to show their ankles, to wear makeup, or even to laugh in public. In addition, the Taliban gave aid and refuge to numerous terrorist organizations, including Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. The terrorist attacks by al Qaeda against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, spelled the beginning of the end for the Taliban. U.S. and allied military action, along with the opposition forces of the Northern Alliance quickly drove the Taliban from power, leading ultimately to Hamid Karzai winning Afghanistan’s first presidential elections, on October 9, 2004. So it was that at 11:30 on the morning of December 7, 2004, Hamid Karzai entered the reception hall of the presidential palace. There he received a tumultuous standing ovation from 600 invited guests. Government officials, bearded tribal elders in traditional turbans, as well as foreign guests cheered the man whom they saw as the best hope of the Afghan nation. Karzai was accompanied into the hall by Mohammed Zahir Shah, 90 years old, the former king of Afghanistan whose ouster in 1973 had begun the nearly 30 years of unfortunate history that followed. After placing his right hand on the holy Koran and taking the oath of office, Karzai gave his 15-minute inaugural address. Vowing to disarm regional militias, stomp out corruption, conduct fair parliamentary elections in 2005, and eliminate poppy cultivation (poppy cultivation had made Afghanistan the world’s leading opium producer), Karzai went on to acknowledge the past, but also to look hopefully to the future: Every vote that was cast in the elections was a vote for Afghanistan whether I received it or another candidate. I am confident and proud that this nation is determined to rebuild Afghanistan and build it fast; to live in security, and to stand on its own feet.

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HAMID KARZAI

On December 7, 2004, newly elected Afghan president Hamid Karzai (left), shakes hands with Afghan Supreme Court Chief Justice Fazl Hadi Shinwari (right) during his inauguration. Many public officials attended this memorable ceremony, including Afghanistan’s former king, Zahir Shah, and U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney.

As Merajuddin Patan, the governor of Khost province said in an interview shortly before the ceremony, “This is the birth of our nation. I believe the real history of Afghanistan— modern history—will begin with this.”

A New Beginning Karzai’s election and inauguration may have spelled a new beginning for Afghanistan, but a country can never completely break away from its past. A nation, in effect, is its past. All its history, the good as well as the bad, is what makes a nation what it is. And, Afghanistan’s history has made Hamid Karzai who he is. People are the products of their country: Its history and culture help make them who they are. (Compare, for example, George W. Bush of the United States and Vladimir Putin of Russia. Each man is very much a product of his country’s history and culture.) So to explain and to hope to understand the life of Hamid Karzai, we also have to learn about the history and culture of Afghanistan. We have to try to understand how it became the nation that gave rise to both the Taliban and Hamid Karzai. To do that, we’ll have to go over several thousand years of Afghan history and learn how geography helped make Afghanistan the country it is today. We’ll have to start at the beginning.

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Roundabout of the Ancient World Geography is destiny. Where a country is located and who its

neighbors are go a long way toward determining its history, culture, and, eventually, what a country ultimately becomes. Take the United States, for example. It is blessed with long, navigable rivers (the Mississippi for one) that provide easy transportation of goods and people. With only one major mountain range (the Rockies) it’s relatively easy to travel from one section of the county to another. The nation’s relatively temperate climate, rich soil, and abundant water make it an extraordinarily fertile area for a wide range of agriculture. It is a land rich in natural resources. Its Atlantic and Pacific coasts allow for easy shipping with both Europe and Asia. Yet, until 9/11, those same oceans and the nation’s distance from Europe and Asia also helped keep the U.S. mainland safe from foreign threat. This rich and

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Roundabout of the Ancient World secure environment allowed the United States to develop into a world superpower. Now consider Afghanistan. Its rivers are considered mostly unnavigable. The longest river is the Helmand, running southwest across the country from the Hindu Kush to the Iranian border. Its most famous river, the Kabul, runs along the capital and leads through the Khyber Pass (the most famous pass in the Hindu Kush mountain range), on to Pakistan and the Indian subcontinent. The country is crisscrossed with mountains. In fact, Afghanistan’s high mountain ranges have served through the centuries to make transportation and communication difficult, cutting off one group from another. This in turn led to a strong tribal culture, or tribalism. Tribalism means a sense of loyalty or connection to one’s group or tribe, rather than to the nation as a whole. This culture has made unifying and ruling the country difficult at best. (It also has made it difficult for any invaders to gain long-term control of the country.) The country has a continental climate, meaning it has hot, dry summers and cold winters. There are some fertile mountain valleys in the eastern part of the country, as well as plains and grasslands in the north. But deserts and semideserts abound in the west and southwest. Despite the scarcity of fertile ground, the majority of the population still earns its keep from the land, by farming (mostly growing grains such as wheat, although cotton, fruit, and poppies for opium are grown as well), or by raising goats and sheep. It’s a difficult existence. Water, even in the greenest area, is scarce, and severe droughts are frequent. In the center and northeast sections of the country, famine caused by drought has not been an uncommon occurrence. Even grazing land can be so scarce that approximately 2.5 million people, known as the Kuchis, live as nomads. They survive by moving themselves and their flocks from the uplands to the plains in search of vegetation. Most of the land is, in fact, so dry and barren that Martin Ewans, in his book Afghanistan: A Short History of its

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HAMID KARZAI People and Politics, described the landscape thusly: “From the air it resembles a vast moonscape, with only the occasional green of an oasis or a narrow patch of vegetation snaking along a valley.” Geographically, Afghanistan, roughly the size of Texas, is a completely landlocked country, with no access to the sea. It is bordered on the north by the former Soviet republics of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan. Along the far northeast section of the country is a 50-mile (80-kilometer) border with China. From there runs the Durand Line, the border that divides Afghanistan from Pakistan. This border goes from southwest to west, until it finally meets the Iranian border, which is the western border of Afghanistan. The historian Arnold Toynbee described the region where Afghanistan is situated as “the roundabout of the ancient world.” Over the centuries, waves of migrating people have passed through the region, each of them leaving their ethnic and cultural imprint. In more modern times, many of the world’s great armies have passed through the area as well. Sometimes these armies managed to gain temporary control. But no nation has ever, for long, been able to control and subdue the fierce independence of the Afghan people.

The People of Afghanistan The people themselves come from many different ethnic groups, although there are only four major ones. The Pashtuns are the majority, estimated to be approximately 50 percent of the population. (Hamid Karzai himself is Pashtun.) Some historians trace the origins of the Pashtuns to the Indo-Aryan invasions of India. Others believe they are descendents of the Hun invaders of the fifth century a.d. The Pashtuns are divided into different tribes. The two major tribes are the Durrani (who were formerly known as the Abdalis) and the Ghilzai. Both of these tribes are further subdivided into smaller subtribes, and then into even smaller

Roundabout of the Ancient World

Afghan nomads called Kuchis travel toward Lowgar, an eastern Afghan province, on March 26, 2002. The Kuchis are the nomadic sect of Pashtuns, an ethnic group that makes up approximately 50 percent of Afghanistan’s population. Due to a history of war and ethnic conflict, approximately 200,000 Kuchis have been displaced, unable to continue their migratory lifestyle.

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HAMID KARZAI clans. For example, the Durrani are divided into nine different subtribes. The Popolzai subtribe, which Hamid Karzai and his family are from, contains the Saddozai clan, from which came Ahmad Shaw, the first ruler of the first dynasty of rulers of modern Afghanistan. To illustrate how far back the ties between the Popolzai and the rulers of Afghanistan go—consider this. In 1761, King Ahmad Shaw Durrani received a gift of land where he built the city of Kandahar. That gift of land came from the Popolzai. All Pashtuns refer to themselves as “Afghans” and their language as “Afghan.” But the members of the other ethnic groups refer to themselves by their group name first, and as Afghans second, if at all. The Pashtuns live primarily in the south and east of the country, while an equal number (if not actually greater), live on the other side of the Durand Line, in the frontier areas of Pakistan. (These are the very areas where Osama bin Laden is purported to be hiding.) The Pashtuns, like 99 percent of all Afghans, are Muslim. They also hold to a strict tribal code of conduct, called the Pushtoonwali. This code establishes tribal obligations for sanctuary (nanawati), hospitality (melmastia), and revenge (badal). The obligatory call for revenge, whether for matters of honor, or personal or financial disputes, has meant that vendettas and fighting have been a constant theme in Pashtun life. After the Pashtuns, the next most numerous group is the Tajiks, at approximately 20 percent of the population. They are commonly believed to be of Persian origin and are scattered throughout the country, but they tend to be concentrated in the cities as traders and artisans. In the northern part of the country are the Uzbeks. They share similar ethnic origins with the peoples who live directly across the northern border in the former Soviet states. The Uzbeks are mainly farmers and breeders of horses and sheep. Along with the Tajiks, they have a much weaker sense of tribal identity than the Pashtuns.

Roundabout of the Ancient World

[Afghanistan] has long been a “highway of conquest” between west, central, and southern Asia. The final major group is the Hazaras, who inhabit the mountainous areas of central Afghanistan. It was commonly believed that the Hazaras were descendants of Genghis Khan’s soldiers. But some historians now believe that they are the descendants of earlier migrations from central Asia. They are often sheep breeders, although some have moved into the cities. And, unlike the vast majority of Afghanistan’s Muslims, who are Sunni, the Hazaras are Shiite. (Sunnism and Shiism are the two major branches of Islam; Sunni are in the majority worldwide.)

Early Afghan History In any case, archaeological evidence shows that the region where modern-day Afghanistan now exists has been inhabited since the Paleolithic and Neolithic eras. Agriculture was probably practiced there as long as 10,000 years ago. Precious stones like lapis lazuli and minerals like tin appear to have been traded from Afghanistan through the ancient world. So, even from the earliest times, the region’s commercial links spread both to the west and east. As Martin Ewans points out, however, due to its prime location along the trade routes, it has long been a “highway of conquest” between west, central, and southern Asia. The country itself has long been incorporated into numerous empires, as streams of migrations and invasions have moved into and through it. Afghanistan first appears in recorded history in the sixth century b.c. It was then that the Persian monarchs Cyrus the Great and his son Darius conquered these areas at the beginning of the century. Persian rule continued until Alexander of

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The first recorded rulers of Afghanistan were Persian monarchs Cyrus the Great and his son Darius I. In 331 b.c., Alexander the Great, king of Macedonia, defeated Darius III and conquered the Persian Empire in the Battle of Guagamela. In the painting above, Darius III engages in battle.

Macedonia, more commonly known as Alexander the Great, conquered the region. In 330 b.c., Alexander conquered the area on his march of conquest toward India. As he advanced, he founded cities,

Roundabout of the Ancient World including Alexandria Ariana near what is now Herat, and what he considered his most remote city, Alexandria-Eschate (“Alexandria at the end of the world”). After conquering the area, Alexander moved toward, and then into what is now India. Eventually though, tired of war, his troops rebelled. Alexander was forced to return to Greece, but he died along the way, in Babylon, in 323. Following Alexander’s occupation, the Hellenic (Greek) states of the Seleucids and then the Bactrians controlled the area. At the same time, the Indian Marayan Empire, under its great king Asoka, moved into the southern part of the region, introducing Buddhism before being beaten back by the Bactrians. The Bactrians, in turn, fell to the Parthians and various rebellious tribes (primarily the Saka). Up until this point, the migrations and invasions had primarily been from the east to the west, but the area that would become Afghanistan now saw the first great migrations of people out of central Asia. Why did these people suddenly begin migrating? Historians speculate that climate changes may have caused their traditional pasturelands to dry up. Also, with the recent construction of the Great Wall of China, they were unable to move their flocks to the east. So, during the first and second centuries of what is known as the Christian era, the Yueh-chih, or the Kushans, as they came to be known, extended their rule over a large part of India, through Afghanistan, and north to the Caspian and Aral seas. Their great king, Kanishki, built a northern capital of his empire, near what is Peshawar. During this time, trade with the Mideast revived, along with the Silk Route east to China. In a largely forgotten part of the area’s history, Buddhism was once the dominant religion of the region. Monasteries flourished as sites of education. Beautiful statues were built in a combination of Greek and Buddhist styles known as Gandharan. Two of the most famous and spectacular examples of this art were the sandstone images of Buddha at Bamiyan.

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HAMID KARZAI Carved into the side of a cliff in the third century, the taller statue stood 175 feet (53 meters) high, the second one 120 feet (36.5 meters). These statues, which withstood nearly 2,000 years of wind, sand, and time, were destroyed by the Taliban in March 2001. The Kushan Empire lasted for nearly five centuries, until it began to break up into smaller, arguing dynasties. This left them fragmented and unable to resist the invasion of the White Huns in the fifth century. Previous invaders had moved through the country, adjusting themselves to what was already there. Not so the Huns. They went on a war of destruction, decimating the cities and killing everyone in their path. They also destroyed the Buddhist culture, which never recovered. The White Huns, also known as the Ephthalites, ruled for almost 100 years. They in turn were defeated by a combined army of the Sassanids and the Turkish people of central Asia. That’s how things stood until the middle of the seventh century. It was then that a major change was to take place in the region. Arab armies were about to introduce Islam.

The Introduction of Islam The first Arab forays into the country were rather tentative, with important battles against the Sassanids in 637 and 642. By the year 650, they were in control of the major cities of Herat and Balkh. Their forward movement into Afghanistan was slow. It wasn’t until the Ghaznavid Dynasty (962–1149) that Islam was firmly established throughout the region. The Ghaznavid Empire was founded by a local Turkic ruler from Ghazni. His name was Yamin ul-Dawlah Mahmud, and his empire ultimately expanded over a huge area from Kurdistan to northern India. The empire weakened somewhat after the death of its greatest ruler, Mahmud (998– 1030), and was supplanted by the Ghorids, who sacked the city of Ghazni in 1150 and moved their capital to Herat. This empire, too, would not last. The years 1219–1221 saw the

Roundabout of the Ancient World invasion of the Mongol hordes under their ruthless leader, Genghis Khan. Genghis Khan was one of the most brilliant military commanders the world has ever seen. At its peak, his empire ranged from the China Sea all the way west to Hungary, and from northern Siberia to the Indian subcontinent. What he brought to Afghanistan was little short of absolute destruction. Razing whole cities, massacring all of their inhabitants, he left nothing but devastation in his path. As an example, he initially treated the city of Herat relatively well, when it first surrendered to him. After a rebellion six months later, every one of its inhabitants, man, woman and child, were executed—a process that took seven days. Throughout the country he tore down what were considered some of the world’s most beautiful mosques. He also destroyed irrigation systems, turning once fertile land into desert. He left in his wake an Afghanistan that was heavily depopulated, physically devastated, and in economic ruin. Following the death of Genghis Khan in 1227, most of Afghanistan came under the rule of his son, Jaghati, whose descendents ruled from the cities of Kabul and Ghazni. By 1364 though, the western part of the region had fallen under the control of the dreaded Turko-Mongul ruler Tamerlane. Tamerlane’s name is a corruption of Timur-i-Leng, meaning Timur the Lame. He claimed (apparently falsely) to be a descendant of the great Genghis Khan himself. By 1400, he had extended his empire throughout Afghanistan and on into India. Although not an actual descendant, Tamerlane was nearly as bloodthirsty as Genghis himself. He was known for taking the heads of those he had massacred and piling them up into pyramids. His empire, too, began to collapse after his death in 1405. By 1504, Uzbeki-born Babur had established a new empire based in Kabul. Babur was a descendant of both Genghis Khan and Tamerlane. His empire expanded into south Asia in 1525.

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In 1219, mongol warrior Genghis Khan invaded and destroyed the buildings, mosques, resources, and people in Afghanistan. A detail of Genghis Khan and his sons is shown above.

This established what is known as the Mughal Empire through what is now Pakistan and northern India by the year 1527. As Babur’s empire moved to the east and south, the Safavids of Persia moved in from the west, challenging Mughal rule. As would occur again and again through its history, Afghanistan found itself trapped between two rival superpowers. For the next hundred years, the Persians and the Mughals fought over Afghanistan, with the Persians finally gaining control by the mid-seventeenth century. Local Ghilzai Pashtun tribesmen, led by Khan Nashir, overthrew Safavid rule. Under the Hotaki Dynasty, they briefly controlled even Persia itself from 1722–1736. The Persians fought back though, and control of the area reverted back to Persia under the rule of Nadir Shah (1736–1747).

Roundabout of the Ancient World In 1747, Nadir Shah was assassinated, quite possibly by one of his military officers, Ahmad Shah Abdali, Pashtun of the Abdali tribe. He called for a loya jirga to take place in Kandahar, where in 1747, Ahmad Shah (who changed his last name to Durrani, meaning “pearl of pearls”) was named the new ruler by the assembled tribal leaders. The Persian Empire was in disarray following the death of Nadir Shah. The Mughal Empire was in a weakened state. This gave Ahmed Shah all the opportunity he needed. The Durrani Empire quickly expanded out of the traditional Pashtun territories and ultimately included all of what is today’s Afghanistan, plus a portion of Persia (today’s Iran), and all of Pakistan and Kashmir. With that, the modern nation-state of Afghanistan was established.

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A Battle for Influence At its peak, the Durrani empire was one of the largest Islamic

empires in the world. Perhaps most significant, Ahmed Shah had been able to unite all the Afghan tribes into one nation. This achievement though, was short lived. After Ahmad Shah’s death in 1772, his descendants were unable to hold his empire together. They ruled so ineptly, that in only 50 years, much of the land that had been conquered was lost to rival regional powers. The country itself was soon wracked with civil war, as his son, Timur Shah, and then Timur’s 20 sons, including Shah Shuja, fought each other for control of the throne. From 1818 until 1826, Afghanistan splintered into smaller and smaller pieces and finally ceased to exist as a single unified nation. The year 1826 saw the rise of Dost Mohammed, who brought some semblance of order to the area. With him, the Mohammedzai subtribe of the Pashtuns took control. But

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A Battle for influence another period of foreign influence in Afghanistan was about to begin. This period is known to Westerners as the Great Game. To the Afghans though, it was anything but a game.

The Great Game At this time, Afghanistan’s internal affairs were slowly becoming more and more influenced by the area’s two superpowers. These were Czarist Russia to the north, and the British Empire to the southeast in the Indian subcontinent. The British looked to the Hindu Kush Mountains in Afghanistan as a natural barrier to any political invasion of India from the north. For their part, the Russians were busily expanding their empire to the south and east. They had absorbed several formerly independent states of central Asia into their empire. Their main concern was about Britain gaining control in an area they considered theirs to exploit. Taking advantage of a seemingly weakened Afghanistan (and convinced of Russian plans to do the same thing), British armies in India actually invaded Afghanistan on two separate occasions. The British hoped to install governments that would be friendly to their interests, and not so friendly to Russian interests. What would be best for Afghan interests was not a topic of serious consideration. The first attempt, now known as the First Anglo-Afghan War, took place in 1839. Furious at the presence of a single Russian diplomat in Kabul, the British used that as an excuse to demand that Afghanistan end any and all contact with either Russia or Persia. They also demanded that large areas of Pashtun-controlled land (what is now northwest Pakistan) be handed over to the British. Dost Mohammed agreed in principle to these terms, but nothing was ever put in writing. At that point, it really didn’t matter; the British were determined to have their war. The British goal was, as Lord Auckland, the governorgeneral of India put it, “to raise up an insurmountable and, I

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HAMID KARZAI hope, lasting barrier to all encroachments from the Westward, and to establish the basis for the extension and maintenance of British influence throughout Central Asia.” To do so, Dost Mohammed would have to be deposed and the former ruler, Shah Shuja, enthroned as a British puppet. In 1838, British troops set out from India for Afghanistan. By August of 1839, the British controlled most major cities. They then installed Shah Shuja as emir in Kabul, some 30 years after he had previously been deposed. Dost Mohammed was exiled to India. It quickly became clear to the British that Shah Shuja was unable to earn popular support. He could only be kept in power by the long-term presence of British troops. To help keep up military morale, British soldiers were encouraged to bring their wives and families to Afghanistan. This further enraged the Afghans, now convinced that the British were planning to stay permanently. As it turned out, even British troops couldn’t keep Shah Shuja in power. By October of 1841, the tribes were unifying in their support of Dost Mohammed’s son, Mohammed Akbar Khan. British heavy-handed rule further unified the Afghan people, and an angry mob in Kabul murdered a senior British official and his aides. The British chief representative to Kabul tried to negotiate a peaceful settlement, but he too was killed by a mob, and his disemboweled body was then paraded through the streets of Kabul. British troops garrisoned in Kabul, along with other officials and their families, some 16,000 in all, began what was to be a negotiated, safe retreat out of Afghanistan. But as the British marched south through the snowy mountain passes, they were attacked by Ghilzai warriors. Legend has it that only one person, a Dr. Boyden, survived the onslaught. Everyone else, men, women and children, were allegedly killed in bitterly cold, rugged terrain. The truth is nearly as bad. A few survived to be brought back to Kabul as prisoners of war. A mere 100 British were

A Battle for influence

Following British invasion, Afghan ruler and founder of the Barakzai Dynasty, Dost Mahommad Khan, surrenders to Sir William Hay Macnaghten Bart, pictured above. Dost Mahommad Khan was held as a prisoner until 1843, when Afghanistan regained its independence.

found the following year when the British Army of Retribution reentered Kabul to rescue the prisoners. Along the way, the Army of Retribution did find time to burn the Great Bazaar, long considered one of the wonders of central Asia. They also found the time to visit the village of Istalif, where they killed all the adult males, raped and killed many of the women, and destroyed buildings and trees.

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HAMID KARZAI The destruction in Afghanistan caused by the war was immense, as was the damage to the Afghan psyche. The Afghans had always been considered to be a friendly and tolerant people. But the First Anglo-Afghan War changed that. The British (as well as other foreigners) were now distrusted and considered potential aggressors, as well as infidels and immoral people. Xenophobia (a fear or distrust of foreigners or strangers) had become an important part of the Afghan state of mind. In 1843, after the annihilation of the British troops, Afghanistan was once again independent. The exiled emir, Dost Mohammed, returned to reclaim his throne. He ruled peacefully until his death in 1863 and remains one of the very few Afghan leaders to die of natural causes. He was succeeded by his third son, Sher Ali. Sher Ali was offered arms and money from the British, but no other aid. Russia, in an agreement with Britain, had agreed to honor Afghanistan’s northern borders. But Britain offered Sher Ali no guarantees of assistance in case of attack. Fear and distrust led to 10 years of deteriorating relations between the two nations. In the summer of 1878, an uninvited Russian diplomatic mission arrived in Kabul. Outraged, the British demanded that the Afghans receive a British mission as well. The emir refused, but a mission was sent anyway. The mission was turned back militarily as it approached the Khyber Pass. This was just the excuse the British needed to start the Second Anglo-Afghan War. Forty thousand British troops entered Afghanistan at three different points. Sher Ali attempted to plead in person to the Russian czar for assistance but was unable to do so. He died in the city of Mazar-e Sharif the following February. With British troops occupying much of the country, Sher Ali’s son and chosen successor, Yaqub Khan, was forced to sign the Treaty of Gandamak in May of 1879. Yaqub gave up control of Afghanistan’s foreign affairs to the British. British representatives were installed in Kabul and other cities. The

A Battle for influence British gained control of the Khyber Pass. Afghanistan gave up its long-disputed frontier areas to the British. In return, the Afghans were given nothing but an annual financial subsidy and vague promises of assistance in case of foreign invasion. Once again, the tribes rebelled against the foreign occupation. And once again, the entire British garrison in Kabul was annihilated. By 1881, the British had once again had enough and left. This time, though, they gained some territory. Also, they placed on the throne the grandson of Dost Mohammed, Abdur Rahman Khan, a man of such flexible political loyalties that he was acceptable to the British, the Russians, and even the Afghan people. Afghanistan would remain a British protectorate until 1918. Abdur Rahman himself ruled until 1901, and, in doing so, helped create the modern state of Afghanistan. He beat back several attempts at rebellion. He helped to temporarily break the tribal stranglehold on power by forcibly moving tribes from one area of the country to another. He also created provincial governorships along boundaries that did not coincide with traditional tribal lines, further weakening the tribes’ power. Abdur Rahman also made the first tentative steps towards modernization. He brought foreign physicians, engineers, geologists, and printers to Afghanistan. He brought in European machinery and encouraged the building of small factories. He also built some of the first roads in Afghanistan, which also contributed to unifying the country. It was during his reign that the treaty creating the Durand Line was signed. This treaty established once and for all the boundary between Afghanistan and British India. The Durand Line cut through Pashtun tribal areas, splitting the population between Afghanistan and British India (the area would later become Pakistan after the Partition of 1947, dividing British India into two nations—India and Pakistan.) This border has held long-term ramifications, leading to constant strife between Afghanistan and British India, and

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This border has held long-term ramifications, leading to constant strife between Afghanistan and British India, and later between Afghanistan and Pakistan. later between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Even American foreign policy would become enmeshed in this rugged mountainous region. At Abdur Rahman’s death in 1901, there was a peaceful succession of power to his son, Habibullah Khan. As Abdur Rahman Khan’s eldest son, even as a child of a slave mother, Habibullah had been groomed to power. The power to run his country’s foreign affairs was still out of his hands. In 1907, the last stage of the Great Game ended without any Afghan participation. At the 1907 AngloRussian Convention, Russia conceded that Afghanistan was outside of its sphere of influence. It further agreed that Russia would negotiate directly with Britain on all matters relating to Afghanistan. For its part, Britain agreed that it would not occupy any Afghan territory or interfere in its internal domestic affairs.

The Reign of Amanullah Habibullah Khan was assassinated while on a hunting trip on February 20, 1919. He had not named a successor. But he had left his third son, Amanullah Khan, in charge of Kabul. Because Amanullah controlled both the national treasury and the army, within a few months he had gained the support of most tribal leaders. With their backing, he was able to establish control in cities throughout the country. Amanullah’s 10-year reign was a period of dramatic change in Afghanistan. Following the Russian Revolution of 1917,

A Battle for influence Amanullah signed an agreement of aid with Vladimir Lenin in May of 1919. Amanullah then declared independence from Britain, and his armies launched a surprise attack against British troops. After the bombing of Kabul by the Royal Air Force (the first aerial bombing in Afghanistan’s history) and a period of border skirmishes ended in stalemate, the British conceded Afghanistan’s independence. The 1919 Rawalpindi Agreement, a temporary armistice agreement, gave Afghanistan, somewhat ambiguously, self-determination in its foreign affairs. In 1921, Britain and Afghanistan signed a second treaty, guaranteeing Afghan sovereignty. However, the British would not give way to Afghanistan on the Pashtun question, refusing to turn over to Afghanistan control of the tribes on the British side of the line. Since that was a point the Afghans insisted upon, they considered the 1921 agreement to be only informal, and not a permanent agreement. In May of 1921, Afghanistan signed the first agreement with a foreign country: a true Treaty of Friendship with the Soviet Union. The Soviets promised to provide the struggling nation financial support, technology, and military equipment. Amanullah was happy to receive the assistance. But he quickly grew unhappy with the Soviet government’s suppression of Muslims in the Soviet states on Afghanistan’s northern border. Amanullah (who in 1926 gave up the title of emir for that of king), soon embarked on an ambitious program of modernization and Westernization. He established an air force (equipped with Soviet-built planes and flown by Soviet pilots). At the same time, he also managed to alienate many in the army by taking away tribal control over who joined the service. General Mohammad Nadir Khan, Amanullah’s minister of war, opposed this affront to tribal sensitivities and left the inner circle of government to become Afghanistan’s ambassador to France.

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HAMID KARZAI If Amanullah had achieved his goals, Afghanistan would have become a very different country from what it is today. Under Amanullah, for the first time, a constitution was written, creating a secular, not a religious government. The new constitution defined the relationship between religion and the state. This meant that religion and Islamic law would be just one aspect of the government, but not the foundation. Amanullah also attempted to reform the legal system by creating an independent judiciary to enforce secular (versus tribal or Islamic) penal, civil, and commercial codes. He also opened up secular education to both boys and girls and enacted laws guaranteeing limited legal rights for women. As might be expected in such a conservative country, traditional Muslims were outraged at the proposed changes. They felt that Islamic law, or sharia, should be the basis of all law, and indeed of the Afghan government. They violently opposed any attempts to create a “secular” government that put the laws of man before what they considered to be the laws of God. These reforms and others were imposed too rapidly on a population not ready for such drastic changes. Amanullah lost the support of the army as well as tribal and religious leaders. And, upon returning from a “grand tour” of the West, Amanullah managed to further enrage tribal leaders at a loya jirga in July 1928. He insisted that the thousand assembled leaders wear their hair and beards neatly trimmed, not in the long and bushy traditional style. He also ordered that instead of traditional wear, they wear black coats, vests and pants, shirts and ties, black boots, and even homburg hats. His days as king were numbered. In November 1928, Shinwari Pashtun tribesmen revolted in Jalalabad. When the tribal forces advanced on the capital, many of the king’s troops fled. At the same time, an army of Tajik tribesmen moved toward Kabul from the north. In January 1929, Amanullah faced the inevitable and abdicated the throne to his older brother, Inayatullah.

A Battle for influence

Amanullah Khan is photographed with his cabinet dressed in European clothing. Named ruler of Afghanistan in 1919, Amanullah Khan wanted to westernize and modernize Afghanistan, but his eagerness for change was not well received by the conservative Muslims in the country. His program for modernization caused revolt within Afghanistan.

Inayatullah in turn ruled for only three days, before fleeing to exile in India. Amanullah fled to India as well. He finally settled in Zurich, Switzerland, where he died in 1960.

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HAMID KARZAI It was a Tajik, Kala Khan, who seized the reins of power, renaming himself Habibullah Khan. His rule, though, was cut short: Just nine months later, Pashtun tribes, unhappy about being ruled by a non-Pashtun, drove Habibullah from power. They placed Nadir Shah, Amanullah’s former minister of war, on the throne as the new king. Habibullah fled Kabul, but he was captured in Kohistan and executed on November 3, 1929. Mohammed Nadir Shah wasted no time in abolishing many if not most of Amanullah’s reforms. He did attempt to continue modernization, albeit at a somewhat slower pace, with improved communications and road construction. In 1930, a loya jirga confirmed his ascension to the throne. A new constitution was put forth. This version, while making gestures toward democracy, made it clear that the king’s rule was supreme. This constitution stayed in effect as the foundation of Afghanistan’s government for the next 34 years. Nadir Shah’s major accomplishment though, was something of which his great-great-uncle Dost Mohammed would have very proud: He reunited a fragmented Afghanistan. It was simple personal vengeance and retribution that led to the king’s downfall. In 1932, Nadir Shah had a meeting with Ghulam Nabi Charki, in which he accused Ghulam of involvement in an uprising in the east of the country. Ghulam responded angrily and defiantly, and, in a fit of rage, Nadir ordered Ghulam’s immediate execution. Exactly one year later, Nadir himself was assassinated. It is still unclear whether the assassin was Ghulam Nabi’s natural son, an adopted son, or even a family retainer. At any rate, for the Nabi family, vengeance had been achieved.

King Zahir Shah Nadir Shah’s son, Mohammed Zahir Shah, became Afghanistan’s king. And, interestingly, it was Hamid Karzai’s grandfather, Khair Mohamed Karzai, who was the chairman of the Wulfi

A Battle for influence Jirga that authorized King Zahir Shah’s rule. At this time, the country was an absolute monarchy, meaning that the king alone had the final say on all decisions. Zahir was only 19 years old when he ascended the throne. During the early years of his reign, he relied heavily on the advice of his older uncles who held important government positions, including that of prime minister. During the years 1939–1945, World War II involved and engulfed most of the nations in the world, but not Afghanistan. A loya jirga was called in 1939, and, on August 17, 1940, the king proclaimed Afghan neutrality. This meant that Afghanistan refused to take sides in the war. It decided to support neither the United States, Britain, and the Allied powers nor the Axis powers of Germany, Italy, and Japan. This neutrality allowed Afghanistan to emerge undamaged from the war. It also found itself in a stronger position than before, supplying India with a growing amount of agricultural exports. During the post–WWII era, attempts at political liberalization continued. In 1949, the prime minister allowed relatively free elections to Parliament to be held for the first time. He also accepted the activity of political groups opposing the policies of the royal government, as well as the formation of student unions. The opposition movement spread more quickly than the prime minister had intended or imagined. He quickly applied the brakes to the movement. Newspapers that criticized the government were shut down, the Kabul student union was disbanded, and many opposition leaders were jailed. The new parliament elected in 1952 was much more to the government’s liking. The government crackdown served to alienate an entire generation of young reform-minded Afghans from their government. They were no longer able to believe that the monarchy could reform itself. Reform would have to come from outside the present government—by revolution if necessary.

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HAMID KARZAI Still, modernization continued, if at a slower pace. The 1950s saw an end to the forced wearing of veils by women. Islamic fundamentalists who believed that the Koran required Muslim women to appear veiled in public responded by throwing acid in the faces of non-veiled women, often scarring them for life. But the fundamentalists lost the struggle, as more and more women stopped wearing veils. On the foreign policy front, there was also continuing anguish over the Durand Line and the whole Pashtun question. In 1947, India gained its independence from Britain and was quickly portioned, or split, into two separate countries: India, with a majority Hindu population, and Pakistan in the northwest, on the Afghan border. Pakistan retained the Pashtun areas that had been given to British India and finalized with the Durand Line. Afghanistan was unhappy with these arrangements. After tribal rebellions in Pakistan forced the Pakistani air force to bomb villages on the Afghan side of their shared border, a loya jirga was called. The tribal elders declared that all agreements in regard to the disputed areas were null and void. Continuing border skirmishes led, in 1950, to Pakistan halting petroleum shipments to Afghanistan for a period of three months. This was a major factor in Afghanistan turning to the Soviet Union for aid. Close financial ties developed with the signing of a major trade agreement, exchanging Soviet oil, textiles, and manufactured goods for Afghan wool and cotton. In addition, the Soviets offered construction aid for roads, schools, and irrigation systems, and gained the right to explore gas and oil reserves in northern Afghanistan. The king was wary, about receiving so much Soviet assistance. He was afraid that it would come with a price—political and economic domination, and the ultimate Communization of his country. In 1953, the days of political influence of the king’s uncles came to an end. The king’s cousin and brother-in-law, the

A Battle for influence

King Mohammed Zahir of Afghanistan (right foreground) is photographed during a two-week visit to Russia at the Kremlin, in Moscow, on July 19, 1957. In 1955, King Zahir signed an agreement with the Soviets, granting loans for construction projects in Afghanistan.

Western-educated Mohammed Daoud Khan became prime minister. Daoud had no reluctance to receiving aid from the Soviet Union, but he hoped to balance it off with financial aid from the United States. The Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union was at its peak, and both nations were looking to expand

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HAMID KARZAI their areas of influence. The Soviets hoped to move south towards India, and the United States wanted to keep Soviet influence out of Afghanistan. Daoud hoped to use this to his advantage by obtaining as much assistance as possible from both nations. As part of this strategy, in 1955 he signed a new and expanded agreement with the Soviets. The agreement once again guaranteed crucial imports of petroleum and cement. The agreement also provided loans for road construction (including one from Kabul straight through the Hindu Kush all the way to the Soviet border) and other construction projects. Daoud’s strategy paid off when the United States, not willing to allow the Soviets a free hand in Afghanistan, began providing major amounts of aid as well. The United States helped build the roads from Herat to the Iranian border, the road between Kandahar and Kabul, among others. Teachers were sent to Afghanistan, and Afghan students were brought to study in U.S. colleges. The United States even helped start the Afghan national airline, Airana. It would not be an exaggeration to say that Afghanistan was in a period of flux. It was a traditional Islamic nation torn between a desire to liberalize and modernize, yet it wanted to retain its traditions and firm government control. It was independent but dependent on foreign aid. No longer a part of the Great Game struggle between Britain and Russia, it was now playing both sides against each other in the ongoing Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. It was at this time, on December 24, 1957, that Hamid Karzai was born.

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A Time of Turmoil Hamid Karzai was born in the village of Karz, near the city of

Kandahar. Kandahar had been built on the very same land that Karzai’s subtribe, the Popolzai, had given to Ahmad Shawn Durrani, nearly 200 years earlier. The Karzai family had long been involved in the nation’s politics. They were even related to the royal Shah family. Both families were from the same clan. Over the years, both families had intermarried. Karzai’s grandfather, Khair Mohamed Karzai, had served during Afghanistan’s war of independence. Years later he was the deputy speaker of the Senate. Karzai’s father, Abdul Ahad Karzai, was also a significant political figure. He served as deputy of the Parliament during the 1960s. Then, after the Soviet invasion, he was an important figure in the Afghan resistance. Abdul Ahad Karzai was a greatly respected and loved figure among southern Pashtun tribes. Indeed, he was so admired

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Hamid Karzai that the Popolzai made Abdul their chief. He retained this honor until his death in 1999. Large families are common in Afghanistan, and Hamid was the fifth of eight children. His siblings are Abdul Ahmad, Qayum, Faozia Roya (his only sister), Mahmood, Shah Wali, Ahmad Wali, and Abdul Wali. Several members of his family have moved to the United States, where they have opened a number of Afghan restaurants. In the early 1960s, Kandahar was a fairly prosperous city. It was here that Hamid Karzai lived and attended his first three years of primary school. By Afghan standards, the Karzais were well-to-do. As Karzai recalled in an interview, “By Afghan standards, we were a very well-off family. The kind of life we had and also other Afghans had was really too good for the countries around us—big homes and lots of fun.” For fun, young Hamid played sports, including baseball and cricket. (Cricket is a sport involving a bat and ball played by two teams of eleven players each. Originating in Britain, it is extremely popular throughout areas formerly under British rule, including India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. It is especially popular among the urban classes.) Karzai also enjoyed riding his horse around the courtyard near his home. When Hamid’s father became deputy of the Parliament, he moved the family to Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital. Kabul sits at an elevation of about 5,900 feet (1,800 meters), which makes it one of the highest capital cities in the world. An ancient city, Kabul was known for its beautiful mosques and architecture, its schools, and its markets. Before the Soviets and then the Taliban took over, Kabul was a city known for its extraordinary beauty. As Nicolas Bouvier described it in his 1953 book, The Way of the World, “When the traveler from the south beholds Kabul, its rings of poplars, its mauve mountains where a fine layer of smoke is smoking, and the kites that vibrate in the autumn sky above

A Time of Turmoil

This photograph of a crowded sidewalk was taken in November 1961 in Afghanistan’s capital city, Kabul. During the 1960s, Kabul was becoming a bustling city with European shops and the opening of the Afghan Zoo.

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Hamid Karzai the bazaar, he flatters himself that he has come to the end of the world. On the contrary, he has just reached its center.” Kabul in the 1960s was also becoming more cosmopolitan. The first Marks and Spencer store (a popular British department store) in central Asia was built there. Also, with the help of German zoologists, the Afghan Zoo opened its gates in 1967, focusing on Afghan fauna. It was an exciting time, alive with a sense of possibilities and hope for the future. As Karzai described it in an interview, “In Kabul of course, life was very good. We had so much access to good music and movies, which at that age most people really want—as any kid would have in Europe or America, and a good education, a fairly good life.”

Hamid Karzai’s Early Education Hamid was a hard-working student. His family honored and respected education, and Hamid did his best to live up to his family’s high expectations. After studying at the Mahmood Hotaki Elementary School, Hamid attended the Sayed Jamaluddin School, and then Habibia High School. Habibia High School had opened in 1903 and was the oldest and most-respected school in Kabul. As Karzai grew up, like most young people anywhere in the world, he was unsure exactly what he wanted to do with his life. A serious and quiet student, his plans for the future were continuously changing. But even at an early age, he’d inherited his family’s interest in politics. I think I partially wanted to do the kind of parliamentary stuff that my father was doing. I was interested in the University of Kabul, which at that time was a very prestigious institution. The professors there were very well respected and they had very nice lives. The environment

A Time of Turmoil of the university was so enchanting. That was the kind of life I wanted.

Science, though, also sparked his interest for a time. At one stage within class nine and ten, I was very science oriented. I was doing very good in chemistry, and I went towards books about the evolution of mankind. Studies of Darwin and what that theory was. I did too much of that. Kept reading it, kept reading it. I got into trouble with my professor of chemistry, because there were things that I knew he didn’t know, and he really got mad at me one day in the classroom.

Hamid’s interests went beyond science. He loved great literature and had a particular fondness for great Russian writers like Anton Chekhov and Fyodor Dostoyevsky. He also admired English writers like Charles Dickens. And he read a great deal about Afghan history and culture. He learned much from his father, who was a major influence on him. Abdul Ahad, somewhat unusual for an Afghan of his time, was firmly against the use of guns and violence in settling disagreements. His home was open to one and all, and, as the head of the Popolzai, he used his influence to settle arguments and disputes peacefully. Hamid respected this greatly. Of course, given his father’s involvement in Parliament and Afghan national affairs, young Hamid had a ringside seat to his country’s ongoing political evolution.

Conflict with Pakistan Throughout the late 1950s into the early 1960s, Prime Minister Daoud continued to pressure Pakistan on the Pashtun question. He made payments to tribesmen on both sides of the border to encourage rebellion. He sponsored a brief,

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Hamid Karzai unsuccessful invasion of Pakistan in 1960. He maintained a nonstop propaganda war, using the media to convince the people of Afghanistan about the evils of Pakistan. Things came to a head on September 6, 1961. On that date, Afghanistan and Pakistan formally severed all relations. Traffic between the two nations came to a halt. Afghanistan was unable to ship goods to India, its primary trading partner and major source of revenue. The Soviet Union and the United States helped by airlifting Afghan goods, but exports and custom revenues fell dramatically, and trade suffered. In addition, Ghilzai nomads who normally spent winters in India and Pakistan before returning home to Afghanistan were unable to cross the border. Afghanistan’s economic situation rapidly deteriorated. The king finally had enough. He realized that he’d been too out of touch. He’d been relying too much on others and decided to take greater control of his own government. In March 1963, King Zahir Shah asked for and received the resignation of Prime Minister Daoud. Within two months, a new agreement was reached, reestablishing trade and diplomatic relations with Pakistan. The king’s next step was to revise the country’s constitution. Two weeks after the resignation of Daoud, a commission was formed. In September 1964, a 452-member loya jirga approved and signed the document. Ten days later, the king’s signature made it into law. The new constitution made major changes in Afghanistan. It barred the royal family (with the sole exception of the king himself) from participating in politics or government. (This provision was thought to exist to keep Daoud out of politics.) Individual rights were championed. And, after much debate, the term “Afghan” was applied to all Afghans, not just to Pashtuns. The constitution declared Islam as “the sacred religion of Afghanistan,” and that no law could be enacted that was

A Time of Turmoil

Former prime minister Sardar Mohammed Daoud is photographed during a meeting in Kabul, Afghanistan, in March 1973. In July of that same year, Sardar Mohammed Daoud ousted his cousin, King Mohammed Zahir Shah, from the presidency. Following a bloody coup in 1978, he was executed in the presidential palace.

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Hamid Karzai “repugnant to the basic principles” of Islam. However, an independent judiciary (although with some religious judges) established the supremacy of secular law. Although the constitution did provide for a constitutional monarchy (a form of government in which the monarch’s power is not unlimited but exists within legal limits), and there was a bicameral (two chamber) legislature. As always, most of the power still remained with the king. This careful balancing act between individual and religious rights, between the monarchy and democracy, got off to a good start with the 1965 elections. Described as remarkably fair by most impartial observers, the elections for the lower house of Parliament, known as the Wolesi Jirga, brought into office representatives from all parts of the political spectrum. There were supporters of the king and antiroyalists. There were liberals, leftists, and conservative Muslim leaders still opposed to secularization. A new prime minister, Mohammad Hashim Maiwandwal, was named. He quickly established friendly relations with the generally rebellious students, while making it clear that he was in charge. It was understood that there would be definite limits to student political activity. There was an attempt at a balance between monarchy and democracy. It was also clear that the monarchy would have the final say on just how far democratic movements would be allowed to go. Also in 1965, the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) was founded. The PDPA was made up of a small group of followers of Nur Mohammad Taraki and Babrak Karmal. They were both Marxist-Leninists (otherwise known as Communists) with a pro-Moscow orientation. Taraki, who was one of four PDPA members elected to Parliament in the 1965 elections, also started the country’s first major leftist paper. The paper lasted only a month. It was then banned by the government.

A Time of Turmoil By 1967, the PDPA had split into several factions. The two most important were the Khalq (meaning “Masses” or “People”), which was headed by Taraki, and the Parcham (“Banner”) faction headed by Karmal. The split was largely due to personal differences between the two men. Karmal had friends and supporters who were among the upper-middle class. He was in favor of working “within the system” to bring about political change. Taraki came from a lower-class, rural background and believed in the purity of lower-class revolutionary struggle against the upper classes. There was also a split along tribal lines. Karmal attracted supporters from all groups, while Taraki’s group, Khalq, became almost exclusively Pashtun. A third major player in all this, Hafizullah Amin, was loyal to Taraki. All three men, Karmal, Taraki, and Amin, would ultimately take turns becoming president of Afghanistan. New elections in 1969 moved the Parliament further to the right, as conservative tribal and land-owning leaders exerted their influence at the polls. This move to the right slowed down the movement toward liberalization. This in turn caused continued unrest at the University of Kabul. Conflicts spread between religious and leftist groups. This demonstrated a split in the country, but not just along religious and political lines. It also showed a split between the urban, educated middle class, and those who felt alienated because they couldn’t join their ranks. The split was also evident between the urban elite and the majority of the nation, which was still trapped in rural poverty. The economy, which had finally recovered from the break in relations with Pakistan, began to falter again at this time as well. Foreign aid began to dry up. The seasonal rains did not fall from 1969–1972, causing widespread famine. An estimated 100,000 Afghans died.

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Hamid Karzai End of the Monarchy The king was still personally popular, but widespread dissatisfaction spread with regard to his government, seemingly unable to cope with the nation’s continuing difficulties. On July 17, 1973, while the king was in Italy for medical treatment, former prime minister Daoud reemerged from relative obscurity. In a nearly bloodless coup, he took over the country. With just a few hundred troops, the palace and key positions throughout Kabul were seized. The country, weary of what it believed to be a weak and ineffective government, initially welcomed Daoud back into power. People believed that he was exactly the man who could bring order and get the country moving again. Daoud assumed the offices of president, prime minister, foreign minister, and minister of defense. The days of the monarchy were over. Soon the country’s prisons began to be filled with political prisoners. Stories of torture and execution spread. Some executions were announced, notably that of former prime minister Maiwandwal, who had been strangled during an interrogation. Such reports spread shock and fear throughout the country. Initially, Daoud was supported by the nation’s leftists. They were happy to be finally rid of the monarchy. Initially, Daoud also welcomed a close relationship with the Soviet Union and had several of Karmal’s Parchams in his cabinet. Gradually, however, Daoud moved to the right of the political spectrum. Relations with the Soviets gradually deteriorated, and Parchams were pushed out of the cabinet. Despite the weakened state of relations between the Soviets and the Afghans, the Soviets were still the biggest donors of aid to the country. They used this influence to insist that no Western activity be allowed in northern Afghanistan, along the Soviet border. Daoud also accepted aid from other, oil-rich Muslim nations. It was during this period, in 1976, that Hamid Karzai graduated from high school. He left Afghanistan to study in India at a local college in Simla, and then at Himachal Pradesh

A Time of Turmoil

Following the violent coup that left President Sardar Mohammed Daoud and others dead, tanks decorated with flowers stand in front of the Presidential Palace in Kabul. On April 27, 1978, the president and many of his family member were shot dead in their home.

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Hamid Karzai University. It was there that he studied international relations and political science. Karzai received his master’s degree in 1982. While in Simla, Karzai lived at the local YMCA. Being away from his conservative family was a great shock for him. Living away from home gives kids of college age an opportunity to meet new and different kinds of people. This period also allows them to learn more about themselves. Karzai was no exception. As he remembered in a 2002 interview: I recognized when I went to India, when I mixed up with other students there, that I was very reserved, very very, reserved, and that was a handicap. I could not associate easily with people. But on the other hand, it had benefits of selfrestraint and, you know, a level of respect to other people, trying to make sure that nobody was offended, and respect to others.

Besides learning to be more open to others, Karzai changed in other ways as well. He grew his hair long and wore bellbottom pants. He also learned to speak English. When he first arrived in Simla, before moving to the YMCA, he boarded with a local family. The family’s two daughters helped Karzai learn to speak, read, and write English. Hamid Karzai currently speaks six different languages: Pushtu (the language that most Pashtuns speak), Dari (spoken by Tajiks and some urban Pashtuns), Urdu (spoken by Hindu merchants), French, Hindi, and English. His mastery of language has helped him a great deal in his life and career, and in his world travels in support of Afghanistan. He is often able to speak to his audience in their own language. It was also in India that Karzai learned great respect and admiration for Mohandas Gandhi. Gandhi, known as the Mahatma (“great soul”), was instrumental in helping India gain independence from Great Britain. Most important to Karzai, Gandhi did this through nonviolent means.

A Time of Turmoil

“When I became an adult and began to know the world more, Gandhi was somebody that I admired very much.” Through Gandhi’s own writings, Karzai learned to value Gandhi’s nonviolent ways of solving problems. Like Gandhi (and like Karzai’s own father), he believed that guns and violence were not the answer to solving problems. There are many men that Karzai respects as role models, but none more than Gandhi. He explained in an interview: When I became an adult and began to know the world more, Gandhi was somebody that I admired very much, and [South Africa’s Nelson] Mandela. He’s still around, a magnificent man. Martin Luther King is somebody that came very often to mind and was discussed in some circles. But I’m most affected by Gandhi. The struggle for independence of his country, and the way he did it through non-violence, and the tolerance he preached, and the way he respected mankind as a whole, and his self-restraint. A wonderful human being.

Hamid Karzai’s dream of and belief in nonviolence would be sorely tested in the years to come.

The Saur Revolution By 1978, despite good harvests from 1975 on, little economic progress had occurred in Afghanistan. The Afghan standard of living had not improved. Most ominous for Prime Minister Daoud, most major political groups had been alienated from him by his refusal to allow dissent or to share any of his power. In addition, Pashtuns were unhappy with Daoud for making peace with Pakistan. He was willing to accept Pakistani rule over the disputed territories, something they would never

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Hamid Karzai accept. The Communists, although still split into Parcham and Khalq factions, had reconciled. Although they still distrusted each other, they were united in their dislike of Daoud. Things began to fall apart on April 19, 1978. A funeral for Mir Akbar Khyber, a prominent Parcham who had been murdered, served as a rallying point for Afghan Communists; 10,000 to 30,000 people gathered to hear fiery speeches from both Taraki and Karmal. Daoud, dismayed at this demonstration of Communist unity, ordered the arrest of all PDPA leaders. But he moved too slowly. It took a full week to have Taraki arrested. Amin was merely placed under house arrest. According to PDPA writings discovered later, Amin sent out the order for a coup from his home, using family members as messengers. On April 27, 1978, a coup d’etat began with troop movements at the military base at Kabul International Airport. Over the next 24 hours, battles were fought against troops still loyal to Daoud. On the next day, Daoud and most of his family were shot in the presidential palace. The Saur (April) Revolution was a success. The Communist Democratic Republic of Afghanistan was born. The Khalq faction emerged at the top of the new government. Taraki assumed the roles of president, prime minister, and general secretary of the PDPA. Taraki’s trusted second-incommand, Hafizullah Amin, was named deputy prime minister, along with Babrak Karmal, the Parcham leader. In addition, Khalq dominated the Revolutionary Council, which was the actual ruling body of the new government. In its effort to gain absolute control of the country, the government had tribal elders and leaders imprisoned or killed. Hamid Karzai’s own father was imprisoned for two years in the infamous Pol-e-Charki prison near Kabul. At the urging of his family, Karzai remained in India, continuing his studies. His family felt that there, out of the country, he would remain safe.

A Time of Turmoil

This photograph of President Hafizullah Amin was released by his regime in 1979. Hafizullah Amin held reign as president for just a few months before being assassinated by Soviet forces. Soviet-supported leader Babrak Karmal succeeded Hafizullah Amin as president of Afghanistan.

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Hamid Karzai It was not only tribal leaders who were at risk. The dominant Khalq faction began purging, or removing, members of the Parcham faction from positions of power. (Parcham leaders later claimed that at least 11,000 of its members were executed during this time.) Tens of thousands of other Afghans, including many members of the traditional educated ruling class, fled the country at this time. The loss of these people, educated and politically moderate, largely left only Communists on the left and Muslim fundamentalists on the right to fight over the future of the country. A power struggle also erupted within the government. Taraki and Amin both fought for control of the Khalq faction. In September of 1979, Taraki’s followers made several attempts on Amin’s life. It was Taraki who ended up dead, smothered with a pillow over his face. Amin quickly moved to seize power. Things went from bad to worse. Amin had tens of thousands of Afghans executed as resistance grew against the government. Hundreds of thousands more fled the country. Most went to Iran and Pakistan, where they began organizing resistance movements. These groups, largely centered around Peshawar, Pakistan, were loosely divided into two major groups, each of which was broken up into numerous factions. One of the groups was the fundamentalists. Burhanuddin Rabbani, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, and Abdul Rabb Rasuul alSayyaf (who would later invite Osama bin Laden to Afghanistan) were among the fundamentalist leaders. They wanted to redefine the role of Islam in Afghanistan. Among the traditionalist leaders was Sibghatullah Mojadeddi. The traditionalists focused on the use of sharia as the source of law. Some of them were willing to bring back the monarchy and return King Zahir Shah, still in exile in Italy, to the throne. The resistance fighters, regardless of group, were labeled the mujahideen, or “holy warriors.”

A Time of Turmoil The armed resistance and internal chaos right on their border was more than enough to make the Soviets nervous. But there was one more thing. Amin tried to rule Afghanistan independently, without Soviet domination. He also wanted to establish diplomatic relations with Pakistan and China. All these factors combined made the Soviets feel that Amin was too rigid, too erratic, and unable to calm the situation within Afghanistan. This was unacceptable to the Soviets, who desired nothing more than a stable ally on their southern border. On December 24, 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. Within two days, they had taken Kabul. Amin was killed, and Babrak Karmal, the exiled head of the Parchams, was named the new president.

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Resistance The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan set off shock waves throughout

the world. The move was condemned by the foreign ministers of the Organization of the Islamic Conference. The United Nations General Assembly passed resolutions opposing the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. (The United Nations Security Council was powerless to take any action. The Soviet Union, as one of the five permanent members of the Security Council, has veto power over anything going through the council.) In the United States, President Jimmy Carter gave his annual State of the Union address on January 23, 1980. In it, he called Afghanistan’s neighbor Pakistan a “front-line state” in the worldwide battle against Communism. He offered Pakistan a large package of military and economic aid, but only if it would allow the United States to work through it to get aid to the mujahideen. President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq turned down Carter’s offer, but he later accepted a larger aid

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resistance package from Ronald Reagan, who became the U.S. president in 1981. Also in response to the Soviet invasion, President Carter reinstated draft registration. This meant that all U.S. males between the ages of 18 and 25 had to register with Selective Service in the event that a draft should ever become necessary. President Carter did this in an attempt to show that the United States took Soviet action seriously. In addition, President Carter announced that the United States would boycott the 1980 Summer Olympics, which were being held that year in Moscow. That meant that no U.S. athlete would be allowed to participate in the Games. Carter also called for other countries to boycott. Nearly 60 other nations refused to send their athletes to Moscow in protest of the Soviet invasion. In India, 22-year-old Hamid Karzai was shocked and dismayed to hear of his country’s invasion. In 1979, one morning when I was going to university—I was studying in Northern India in Simla—I saw the newspapers in the morning, and the newspapers said that the Soviet Union had invaded Afghanistan. My feeling at that moment suddenly was of a loss. I felt smaller. Much, much smaller than I felt before when I was walking to my college. I heard people talk about this invasion and suddenly I felt a loss of identity. Who am I? Do I have a country? Do I have a name? Do I have an identity? I said, “No, I don’t. I don’t have a country. My country is taken over. Let’s do something about it.”

Karzai’s immediate reaction was to do something. Anything. I took a bus as a student and went something like 3,000 kilometers [nearly 2,000 miles] to the eastern border of Afghanistan and I saw the first batch of refugees there, refugees that

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HAMID KARZAI had left Afghanistan as a result of the Soviet invasion. The situation they were in, but the pride they had! I was 18 or 17 when I left the country to study abroad, but the rest of Asia doesn’t really know what the character of [Afghan] society is, how its people are. I had some money with me. It was my stipend money that my mother had sent me. I handed out some of that money to one of my fellow Afghans who was a refugee. He was insulted. He said, “What do you think of me?” I said, “I’m trying to help.” He said, “No. Don’t help by handing me some money. If you really want to help, you help the whole of Afghanistan. Help me get back home.” This was a remarkable thing to hear, “Help me go back home.” I stayed a few days there. I came back to India. I had a year and a half to complete my graduate years. I did that, and the moment I finished that I remembered the words that the man had told me. “Help me go home.”

There was more than that memory driving Karzai. He came from one of the leading families in Afghanistan. With that came responsibility. As Karzai told Robert Kaplan in an interview for his book, Soldiers of God: With Islamic Warriors in Afghanistan and Pakistan, something occurred when he visited the refugee camp, located near Quetta, Pakistan. They thought that just because I was the khan’s son, I had the power to help them. I felt ashamed, because I knew I was just a naïve student who was spending his college years thinking only of himself and his ambition. I was not what they thought I was. My goal from that moment on was to became the man that those refugees thought I was. To become a man like my father.

While Karzai was finishing his studies, the Soviets were trying to solidify control of his country. It wasn’t easy. They did have some supporters. Communism had become popular

resistance among some people in Afghanistan for economic reasons. Warlords throughout Afghanistan owned large sections of land. They protected this land by forming individual armies or militias. They often fought among themselves and they were constantly trying to gain even more power and land for themselves. Some were so powerful that they considered themselves above the law. In fact, they often considered themselves to be the law. So although there was a small group of wealthy and powerful landowners, by far the majority of the rural population (which was and is the majority of the nation’s population) were poor. They were sharecroppers. They didn’t own any land themselves, but worked for the land-owning warlords. The communists promised to break the economic stranglehold that the few had over the many. They promised to share the wealth more evenly throughout the population. This was an attractive idea to many people. But, as attractive an idea as it was, many Afghans hated even more a government imposed on them by foreign invaders. Karmal’s government was weak, still torn between rival Parchams and Khalqis. (Even though the Parchams were now in charge, the Khalqis had killed so many of them when they were in charge that it was necessary to rely on Khalqi officers to rebuild the Afghan army.)

Rebellion Against the Soviets Resistance against the Soviet invaders grew. The Soviet army in Afghanistan, originally just 30,000 troops, grew to more than 100,000 in an attempt to quash the rebellion. For the next ten years, the Soviet military and their Afghan allies fought the mujahideen for control of the country. The Soviets primarily used helicopters as their air attack force, along with fighter planes and bombers, special forces, and ground troops. In some areas, the Soviets conducted what is called a scorched-earth policy. This meant that in areas of suspected mujahideen strength, the Soviet military would destroy entire

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HAMID KARZAI

During the 1980 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, villages were burned to the ground and families were run out of their homes. Above, an Afghan refugee is photographed with his child at a refugee camp in the Kunar Province near the Pakistan border.

villages, houses, and crops. They left nothing standing but the very earth itself. Refugees driven out of their homes in the countryside then fled to the cities. Kabul’s population swelled to more than 2 million people. (That is a rough estimate, as no official census was done. The estimated population of Kabul in 1970, just 10 years earlier, was 472,000 people.) Millions more fled

resistance the country entirely. Some Afghan refugees left for the United States, including Karzai’s siblings. Five of the six who moved to the United States opened the Helmand chain of Afghan restaurants. (The name “Helmand” comes from the river near where the family grew up in Kandahar.) Karzai’s youngest brother, Abdul Wali, teaches biochemistry at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and does medical research in antibiotics. For many years, his family urged Karzai to move to the safety of America as well, but he refused to abandon his native land. Karzai still stays in close contact with his family living in America. They visit each other whenever they can. The majority of the nation’s refugees, fled to Iran and Pakistan. It’s estimated that nearly 5½ million Afghan men, women, and children were refugees in those two countries alone. That is an estimated one-third of the nation’s prewar population. Now consider the estimated 2 million Afghans who were forced out of their homes by the war but stayed in Afghanistan. What you have is a country torn apart, a country nearly destroyed by war. The rest of Karzai’s own family fled Afghanistan in 1981, immediately after Abdul Ahad Karzai’s release from prison. They settled in Quetta, Pakistan, before many of them ultimately moved to the United States. They wanted to demonstrate their faith in their ultimate return to a liberated Afghanistan. To do so, they never bought, but always rented, their homes while in exile. It was in Quetta that Hamid rejoined his family after graduating university and receiving his master’s degree. Upon arriving in Pakistan, Karzai was delighted to be reunited with his family. He also knew that the moment had come for him to help in the fight against the Soviets. He joined the Afghan Jihad wing of the Afghan National Liberation Front (ANLF). The group, like many groups fighting the Soviet occupation, was based in Peshawar, Pakistan. Peshawar is less than 100 kilometers (about 62 miles) from the Afghan/Pakistan border.

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HAMID KARZAI

Mujahideen rebels, also known as holy warriors, rest in the mountains in Afghanistan in May 1980. During the Soviet invasion, mujahideen warriors fought Soviet forces for control over their home country. In February 1989, after years of fighting, the last of the Soviet troops departed Afghanistan.

The ANLF was led by Sibghatullah Mojadeddi, one of the traditionalist fighters against Soviet rule. Moderate groups like the ANLF and NIFA (the National Islamic Front of Afghanistan), wanted a return to Afghanistan as it was before the 1973 coup. They hoped for a return to a traditional monarchy.

resistance

Even in exile, and as young as he was, Hamid Karzai had a look of power. Other opposition groups, such as Yunus Khalis’s Hizb-iIslami (Party of Islam), Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s Hizb-i-Islam (again, Party of Islam, but a different, more radical organization), and Burhanuddin Rabbani’s Jamiat-i-Islami (Islamic Society), had a different dream for Afghanistan. Rejecting both monarchy and Communism, they wanted to create a new Islamic state. All seven of the major opposition groups were loosely united under the banner of the Islamic Unity of Afghan Mujahideen. There was much infighting and distrust among the seven groups, though. It was claimed that Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s group killed more fellow mujahideen than it did actual Soviets.

Karzai Fights the Soviet Occupation In 1982, shortly after his arrival in Pakistan, Karzai became director of operations for the ANLF. He did not fight directly on the frontlines, but he was active in planning and strategizing the organization’s efforts against the Soviets. Although he was living in exile, he wasn’t living uncomfortably. He did, after all, come from a wealthy, powerful family. Reporters often interviewed him at his family’s villa in Peshawar. It is reported that he dressed well, and, as Robert Kaplan described him, “He was tall and clean shaven, with a long nose and big black eyes. His thin bald head gave him the look of an eagle. Wearing a sparkling white shalwar kameez (the traditional male Afghan costume of baggy cotton pants and long shirt—although he often wore “Western” clothes like blazers and slacks), he affected the dignity, courtly manners, and high breeding for which the Popolzai are known

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HAMID KARZAI throughout Afghanistan.” Even in exile, and as young as he was, Hamid Karzai had a look of power. In 1986, he was sent to Lille, France, to attend a threemonth journalism course. Upon his return to Peshawar, he was named deputy director of the political office of the National Rescue Front, also led by Professor Mojadeddi. In this role, Karzai traveled the world. He spoke to world leaders and organizations, pleading for aid for the mujahideen. Karzai’s calm, persuasive, diplomatic manner helped bring much-needed assistance to the opposition. The opposition was creating problems for the Afghan government. Deciding a new leader was needed, Babrak Karmal was forced out as the head of the PDPA by the Soviets, although he was allowed to remain as president. The new head of the party was Mohammed Najibullah. He had been serving as the head of the KHAD, the Afghan secret police. He was known for his skills as a mediator between the various political factions. But disunity still ruled the Afghan government, much to the dismay of the Soviets. The period of 1985 to 1986 saw some of the very worst fighting of the war. Soviet forces launched the largest and most effective attacks against mujahideen supply lines coming out of Pakistan. Major campaigns were also launched near Herat and Kandahar. But at the same time, large amounts of military support were reaching the mujahideen from the United States and Saudi Arabia. The first FIM-92 Stinger ground-to-air missiles arrived. These missiles denied the Soviets the air advantage they’d enjoyed throughout the war, allowing the mujahideen to fight the Soviets on a more even footing than ever before. There were others besides Karzai, of course, who helped convince the world to arm the mujahideen. In his book Soldiers of God, Robert Kaplan recounted an incident that reminds us that, in many ways, the Great Game of the nineteenth century was still being played out. Abdul Haq, a Pashtun commander of

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On April 26, 1988, newly appointed Afghan president Mohammed Najibullah is photographed at a meeting of American and Soviet scholars in Kabul. Najibullah’s regime was extremely unstable due to disarray within the country. Four years after he assumed the leadership position of Afghanistan, Najibullah agreed to step down as president. In 1996, when Taliban forces took overtook Kabul, Najibullah was executed.

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HAMID KARZAI Yunus Khalis’s Hizb-i-Islami, had gone to Britain’s prime minister Margaret Thatcher to plead for help. “I told Mrs. Thatcher,” Haq said, “that my great-grandfather and his father before him fought the British who invaded Afghanistan to keep the Russians out. So I asked her: Now that the Russians have finally come, as the British once feared, why are you so quiet? Why did you send everything a hundred years ago and yet now you send nothing?” The request worked. The Great Game continued. Not only was there increased military opposition to the Soviet military presence in Afghanistan, but also the Soviets faced growing opposition at home to the war. Large numbers of Russian soldiers were returning to Russia from Afghanistan. They brought with them accounts of the war and of the large number of Soviet casualties. The Soviet people finally learned firsthand just how disastrous the invasion had been.

The End of the Soviet Occupation In early 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev assumed the Soviet leadership position. He was young for a Soviet leader and not well known. Because of that, he needed to prove his toughness to the Soviet military. As much as he might have wanted to, he couldn’t start pulling Soviet troops out of Afghanistan. If he had, he wouldn’t have lasted long in office. As a result, his first year in office saw some of the heaviest fighting of the war. At the same time, Gorbachev was looking for a way for his country to get out of Afghanistan. He knew that the war could not be won. He knew that the mujahideen would never surrender. He knew that the cost of the war was causing a huge strain on the Soviet economy. There was one more factor: Gorbachev was anxious to improve Soviet relations with the West. He knew that that would not happen until Soviet troops had left Afghanistan. In April of 1988, representatives of the United States, the Soviet Union, Pakistan, and Afghanistan met in Geneva, Switzerland, under the auspices of the United Nations. They

resistance searched for a way for the Soviet Union to withdraw its troops honorably, without looking like it had lost the war or was surrendering. An agreement was reached, and Soviet troops began pulling out of Afghanistan. On February 15, 1989, right on schedule, the last Soviet troops departed. The costs of the war were enormous. More than one million Afghans had been killed, mostly civilians. The Soviets lost between 15,000 and 50,000 soldiers. The dead, the wounded, the refugees, the destruction—it was like Genghis Khan and his Mongols had come through Afghanistan all over again. The deaths did not end with the Soviet withdrawal. The Soviets had left a gruesome, unwelcome souvenir behind. During the occupation, the Soviets had planted millions of land mines across Afghanistan. The U.S. State Department estimated a number between 10 and 30 million. According to Robert Kaplan, that would be the equivalent of two mines for every Afghan who survived the war. That works out to between 40 and 120 mines per square mile of Afghan territory. Most of these mines are unmarked. Although efforts have been made to remove the mines, tens of thousands of civilians, many of them children, have been killed and maimed, and continue to be killed and maimed by them. But the Soviets left far more behind than land mines. When they left, the soldiers took with them only their personal weapons and vehicles. This left the country awash in arms and equipment. And, although they were no longer supporting the Afghan government with troops, Soviet financial aid continued. It is estimated that this support amounted to between 3 and 4 billion dollars a year. The Soviets also left behind Mohammed Najibullah, still in charge of the Afghan government. It was predicted that, without the support of Soviet troops, his government would not last for long. This proved not to be the case. One reason was that 3 to 4 billion dollars in aid annually can help a government buy a lot of support. Najibullah used a

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HAMID KARZAI large portion of the aid as payoffs to tribal and guerilla leaders to get them to back his regime. In addition, he declared a state of emergency and suspended civil rights through the country. This gave him unlimited power to quash any potential rebellions. He also appointed a new Parcham-dominated Supreme Council. Another major factor in Najibullah’s ability to last was the disarray of the resistance groups. Faced with a common enemy, the mujahideen had been relatively united. Once the Soviets left, they lost their common enemy. At that point, the usual tribal and religious differences came out into the open again. A shara was called in February of 1989 to elect an interim government. (This was meant to be a temporary government in exile. It would be the government of those opposing the continuing Communist rule and would exist only until Najibullah was defeated and a new government could be established.) The shara was allegedly manipulated by the Pakistani ISI as well as by Saudi Arabian money. Sibghatullah Mojadeddi was elected president of the Afghan Interim Government. Abdul-Rab al-Rasul Sayyaf was named prime minister. In recognition of his efforts and achievements during the fight against the Soviet occupation, Hamid Karzai was appointed director of the Foreign Relations Unit in the office of the president of the interim government. His job was to establish relations with foreign governments around the world and to help gain recognition of the interim government. This turned out to be a difficult assignment. The interim government was a government in name only. Based in Peshawar, it lacked any kind of base within Afghanistan itself. The United States would not recognize the AIG until it controlled a significant amount of territory within Afghanistan and showed that it had popular support. Other countries agreed. Although they sympathized with Karzai and the AIG, they withheld recognition.

resistance Gradually, the mujahideen gained control of the rural Afghan countryside. The Afghan government kept control of the major cities. Opposition groups in the northern part of the country were made up of Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Hazaras. They were led militarily by Ahmed Shah Massoud and Abdul Rashid Dostum. Their political leader was Burhanuddin Rabbani. They wanted to run the Afghan government without Pashtun involvement. The largest Pashtun faction, based in the south, was led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the same man who had killed so many of his fellow mujahideen. The struggle for power continued until 1992. That year, the Soviets were trying to cope with the end of Communist rule within Russia and the loss of their empire. Facing financial hard times themselves, they cut off financial aid to the Afghan government. That was the beginning of the end for Najibullah. By April of 1992, Massoud’s troops were parked on the northern outskirts of Kabul. Hekmatyar’s troops were based on the southern outskirts. Najibullah fled to the relative safety of a United Nations compound in Kabul. Moving first, Massoud’s troops took control of Kabul. The Communist government of Afghanistan was no more. The mujahideen, though, could not manage to work together to form a government. As Martin Ewans described it in his history of Afghanistan, The first three years of mujahideen rule, if it could be called that, were characterized by the total inability of its leaders to agree among themselves on any lasting political settlement and their readiness to fight one another at the slightest provocation, or without any apparent provocation at all.

There were attempts made to form a viable government. In June of 1992, Rabbani was named president. Fighting promptly broke out between forces loyal to Rabbani and forces

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HAMID KARZAI loyal to Hekmatyar. Hekmatyar, who thought he should have been named president, began a series of missile attacks against Kabul. The city, which had made it through the Soviet occupation relatively unscathed, was soon in ruins.

Coming Home In 1992, Karzai returned to Afghanistan for the first time in many years to work for the new government. He was named deputy foreign minister. Again he traveled the world, struggling to gain support for the new, fragile government. He was still optimistic and hoped that the fighting would soon come to a stop. Karzai often visited the United States on these foreign tours and met with U.S. officials. His job was to let them know what was going on in his country, while trying to get advice and assistance. Karzai also took advantage of his time in the United States to visit family. He often got the chance to stay at the home of his brother Qayum and his wife, Pat. Karzai enjoyed the opportunity to stay with his family and to unwind from his stressful job in the beautiful Maryland countryside. From 1992 to 1996, the struggles within Afghanistan continued nonstop. The fighting over Kabul was the most intense militarily (30,000 Kabulians killed, 100,000 wounded), but conditions in the countryside were difficult as well. The government had little control outside the cities. The country was splitting once again into different parts. Each part of the country was under the control of a different warlord. There was no central ruling authority. Power came to the group with the most guns. Anarchy began to rule the country. Karzai was disgusted by the continued fighting. He found himself unable to work for a government without popular support. In 1994, he resigned his position as deputy foreign minister and returned to Pakistan. As the country spun further and further out of control, a new political movement began. This group promised to restore order and stability to Afghanistan. They called themselves the Taliban.

resistance

The last of the Soviet troops leave Afghanistan on February 13, 1989. Although the departure of Soviet forces marked the end to a decade of war, the fighting only continued in Afghanistan. For the next four years, Afghanistan engaged in a civil war, which resulted in the fall of the government.

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HAMID KARZAI Talib means “religious student.” At the heart of the movement were Afghan refugee students from the madrassas (religious schools) across the border in the Northwest Frontier Province of Pakistan. This is the same area that the Afghans had long been claiming as their own. Many of these schools were funded in part by the United States to help encourage Afghan refugees to drive the Russian “infidels,” or nonbelievers, out of Afghanistan. The Taliban tells the following story of their origins. In July of 1994, a guerilla leader in Kandahar raped and killed three women. A mullah for the area, Maulvi Mohammed Omar, was asked by the locals if he could do something about the killings. Omar recruited a group of religious students. They then murdered the commander and disbanded his militia. After this initial success, they were asked to help others in the growing chaos that was Afghanistan. The Taliban’s ability to bring order allowed it to take the place of the real Afghan government, which had proved itself unable to protect its citizens. Like Hamid Karzai, Mullah Mohammed Omar had grown up in Kandahar. Unlike Karzai, Omar grew up poor and uneducated. Omar is said to have left Kandahar on only a few occasions in his life. Indeed, like Mullah Omar, most members of the Taliban were relatively uneducated and unaware of the world outside of Afghanistan. The only education most of them had received was at the madrassas. At these schools, students learned Islamic law and only Islamic law. No other subjects were taught—all learning was geared to the students’ understanding of fundamentalist Islam. The schools also served as military training camps. For hundreds of thousands of Afghan males, who were poor, homeless, or orphaned by the war, the madrassas and the Taliban gave them a sense of belonging. They provided them with a sense of purpose.

resistance That purpose was to free Afghanistan from Communist tyranny and to stop the anarchy of warlord control. Omar’s promise of safety and security sounded good to a people exhausted from years of war and chaos. The Taliban quickly gained control of Kandahar and used the city as their base of operations. With financial support from Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, the Taliban were able to gain control of larger and larger parts of the country. Hamid Karzai initially supported the Taliban. He felt that they would be able to restore order and stability to his beloved country. Karzai met with Mullah Omar on several occasions. He also gave the Taliban $50,000, along with a large number of weapons that had been acquired and stored away during the war against the Soviet Union. It wasn’t long, though, before Karzai regretted his support. He soon realized that things in the country were about to go from bad to worse.

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Taliban Rule The Taliban rapidly expanded their control across the country. As

they did, it became clear that they had more in mind than simply bringing stability to the nation. Their ultimate goal was to drive what they saw as “foreign influences” out of Afghanistan. In doing so, they would turn Afghanistan into their extreme vision of what an Islamic state should be. (Of course, the Taliban didn’t realize that Islam itself was a “foreign influence” in Afghanistan. They didn’t seem to understand that other religions, such as Buddhism, had been practiced there long before the arrival of Islam.) The Taliban are not the mainstream of Islamic thought. They are not “typical” Muslims. They are the result of an extreme reaction caused by centuries of war, poverty, and destruction. They see “Western” values and ideas as destructive to Afghan society. They reject secular values and embrace their own extreme

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taliban rule interpretation of Islamic law. This radical interpretation of Islamic law, combined with rural, male-centered Pashtun mores (most members of the Taliban are Pashtuns from the countryside), proved to be a dangerous and deadly combination. With power, the Taliban was able to impose and enforce its rules across the country. In doing so, they committed a huge number of violations against basic human rights— largely against women and girls. Most women were barred from working outside the home. They were not allowed to get an education. Most were not even allowed to leave the house except in the company of a male relative. Women were forced to wear the traditional burka, a garment that covers a woman’s body from top to bottom, and were not permitted to wear shoes that made noise when they were walking. Women were denied hospital treatment to prevent them from being seen by male doctors and attendants. The Taliban attempted to “cleanse” Afghanistan of what they considered to be dangerous Western influences (dangerous because they were considered a threat, or distraction, from Islam). To do so, the Taliban issued a long list of things that Afghans could not do or have. There would be no entertainment. Television, music, movies, and computers were not allowed. There would be no newspapers or magazines. Children’s toys were banned, as was the flying of kites. Men were not allowed to cut or trim their beards. (If they did, they could be beaten or jailed.) Wearing white shoes (the color of the Taliban flag) was forbidden. Members of the Taliban’s General Department for the Preservation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice rode the streets in pickup trucks. They would search homes at random, looking for forbidden items. If found, the items would be destroyed and the owners would be severely punished. The Taliban was ruthless in imposing its laws. Anyone who defied the laws was tortured or jailed. Some were executed.

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A burka, an outer garment that covers the entire body, was required dress for women during the Taliban rule of Afghanistan. On April 21, 1996, widows dressed in burkas register for food aid at a Red Crescent center in Kabul.

Punishments were harsh. Adulterers could be stoned to death. Thieves would have one of their hands cut off. Minority groups like the Hazara were brutally oppressed by the Taliban, and many thousands of them were killed. Why did Hamid Karzai initially support the Taliban? He explained his reasons in a 2002 interview:

taliban rule When the country went to anarchy at the hands of various warlords and commanders, one of these people [Taliban] came to me and said, “Hamid, we were friends when we were fighting the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Look at this country. What happened to this country? War everywhere, anarchy, looting, insults to women, insults to the sovereignty of this country. Can we do something about it?” I said, “Sure. But how?” He said, “Let’s get together and get rid of these commanders and make the country all right.” I said, “Fine.” That is how the process of the Taliban began. They were very fine people. The U.S. supported them. The UN supported them. They were very good people. Very soon, they were taken over by foreigners, by the Pakistanis, by the Arab elements, by radical Muslims, radical extremist elements from all over the world, And then terrorists mixed up with them. So the movement was completely sabotaged. The good ones in it were somehow sidelined or assassinated or killed or made to sit at home, and the bad ones kept rising and rising and rising. That’s how this movement that could have been a good one, that could have been one that could bring peace, turned into a killing machine, turned into an instrument of terror and torture for Afghans. I began to sense that within eight months of them coming to Afghanistan, and I began to speak to people about that. Nobody believed me.

Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan In 1996, shortly after the Taliban took control of Kabul, they asked Karzai to be their representative to the United Nations. He refused, and when they asked why, he replied, “Because you are giving sanctuary to terrorists.” Indeed, the Taliban was giving sanctuary to terrorists. From the mid 1990s on, Osama bin Laden and his terrorist organization al Qaeda used Afghanistan as their base of operations. It

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HAMID KARZAI was an arrangement that worked well for both. Al Qaeda had a haven in which to train terrorists and plan future terrorist attacks. In return, the Taliban received financial and political support from bin Laden. After turning down the Taliban’s request to be ambassador, Karzai knew he was no longer safe in Afghanistan. Once again, he was forced to leave the country. He rejoined his father in Pakistan. They worked together to campaign against the Taliban regime. Karzai spent the next few years traveling the world. He spoke to as many leaders as he could, explaining to them exactly what was happening in Afghanistan. He tried to get the world’s attention focused on the killings, the abuses, the rising terrorist threat, and the misery of the Afghan people. But nobody believed him. As he recalled in his 2002 interview: I began to travel to Europe to tell the Europeans and the Americans that Afghanistan is going through very difficult times; that there is a danger in Afghanistan for Afghans and for the rest of the world. Very few people believed me. They said, “This is not true. You are saying this because they are not the type of people you are. They represent Afghanistan; you represent another culture. You speak English, you are educated, so you don’t represent Afghanistan. The Taliban do represent Afghanistan.” We began in Afghanistan a campaign against them, a campaign to dislodge them, without help from the world.

Karzai never gave up. He kept trying, constantly traveling and speaking everywhere he could, trying desperately to get the world’s attention focused on Afghanistan.

An Important Year for Karzai The year 1999 was pivotal in Karzai’s life. In January of 1999, he married his cousin, Zinat. He was 40 years old at the time

taliban rule of his marriage. This is very old for an Afghan male, who traditionally marries while in his twenties. Afghan tradition also holds that people do not choose their own spouses. Instead, marriages are arranged by the parents. In Afghanistan, as in many tribal societies, cousins are often selected as spouses. Why did Karzai decide that now was the time to marry? He’d always been too busy, too devoted to his country to allow himself much of a personal life. But at this time, Karzai’s mother became ill. She told her son that before she died, one of her fondest wishes was to see him married. Karzai was only too happy to oblige. So as arranged by his parents, he married in a traditional Afghan ceremony. Zinat Karzai was a doctor, specializing in gynecology. She had often treated Afghan refugees. Since marrying Hamid, she no longer practices medicine. She became a traditional Afghan wife. In fact, for many years, Zinat never made a public appearance or was photographed with her husband. This was partially due to safety concerns. But there was another reason. In traditional Afghan society, it is considered appalling for a high-born man to “share” his wife with the public in any way. And no matter how “Western” he may appear, Hamid Karzai is still an Afghan male. He was unwilling to cause any trouble by not following his people’s traditions. Karzai’s life quickly moved from happiness to tragedy. Six months after his wedding, on July 14, 1999, his father was shot and killed, most probably by the Taliban. Despite years living in exile, the Karzais were still considered a powerful and influential family. As such, they were considered a potential threat to the Taliban regime. And feeling threatened, they had Abdul Ahad Karzai, the head of the Popolzai, murdered. Karzai remembered the events in a 2002 interview: My brother called me on the mobile phone, and said, “Hamid, our father was assassinated.” Immediately, the first question that came to me was if he saw the assassin

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In the photograph above, a Taliban soldier orders a bypasser to pray in a mosque in Kabul. The Taliban, Islamic extremists, imposed strict regulations on Afghans. All Western influences were banned from Afghanistan, including music, television, and movies. Anyone who disobeyed the Taliban’s rules was subjected to harsh punishment, or even death.

or saw the gun that was pointed at him. And … When I came back to the hospital where my father was lying, I asked my brother. I said, “Did our father see the assassin or the gunman?”

taliban rule He said, ‘No, his back was to the gate. He was talking to somebody and the assassin shot him from behind.” I was relieved that he didn’t see the man, and he didn’t see the gun that was pointed at him, because he hated it so much. So that pain he did not suffer. He was just shot.

Karzai was devastated at the loss of his beloved father. His father, who had hated guns and believed in nonviolence, had been shot. Karzai knew what he needed to do. He had to bring his father’s body out of Pakistan and home to Afghanistan. He wanted him to be buried in the family burial ground. It was an extraordinary act of bravery and defiance. A procession of more than 100 cars left Pakistan for the Afghan city of Karz. Karz is near Kandahar, which remained the center of Taliban strength. The Taliban, knowing how much respect Abdul Ahad and Hamid Karzai had in the country, did nothing. As Karzai described it: It was risky, exactly, so risky. We had no guns, we had no arms, we had nothing. We just moved in. But of course, the Taliban were frightened. They were so frightened that they brought tanks all around the city. They took all the city corners and crossroads and protected them with tanks. We were just civilians there.

Karzai’s bravery brought him new stature and prominence as a leader of the resistance. His stature grew even more on July 22, one week after his father’s assassination. On that day, Hamid Karzai was named as the new leader of the Popolzai, assuming the leadership left vacant by the death of his father. He also continued to travel extensively, trying to warn the world about the Taliban and the rapidly growing terrorist threat. While in Italy, Karzai met with former king Zahir Shah.

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HAMID KARZAI The deposed ruler backed a plan for a broad-based government in Afghanistan that would represent all the people and factions of the country. The former king gave Karzai a holy Koran as a gift and symbol of friendship and respect, and the two shared their hopes for a new Afghanistan.

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9/11 Changes Everything Afghanistan was in a constant state of turmoil from 1999 to 2001.

Although the Taliban claimed control of 90 percent of the country, resistance continued against their rule. The Northern Alliance, headed by former president Burhanuddin Rabbani, still fought against the Taliban from their bases in the north. Most of the world still considered Rabbani to be the lawful president of Afghanistan. Only three nations, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, officially recognized the Taliban as the legitimate rulers of the country. Indeed, Burhanuddin Rabbani still held Afghanistan’s official seat the United Nations. The world was also becoming more and more aware of the growing danger that bin Laden and his terrorist network presented. In October of 1999, the United Nations Security Council demanded that bin Laden be turned over for trial. He was wanted in connection with the bombing of U.S. embassies

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At the same time he came to realize that the only way to defeat a powerful, violent group such as the Taliban was with force. in Kenya and Tanzania. When the Taliban refused, the Security Council imposed economic sanctions against Afghanistan. This brought even greater hardship to the beleaguered nation. The sanctions did nothing to soften the Taliban’s resolve to protect bin Laden. Their reasons for giving him sanctuary were threefold: he was a Muslim like them; he had fought with them against the Russians; and to turn him over to outside legal authorities would violate the Pashtun code of hospitality. In addition, bin Laden’s followers were useful in the fight against the Taliban’s opponents. The world was further outraged by the Taliban in March of 2001. That was the month that the Taliban ordered the destruction of the two 2,000-year-old statues of the Buddha carved into the cliffs at Banyan. Despite worldwide protests, the statues were destroyed. To the Taliban, the statues violated Islamic laws against the artistic representation of human form, and against having false idols. Throughout these years, Hamid Karzai tirelessly traveled the world. He became a well-respected speaker and representative of the Afghan people. Handsome and stylishly dressed in his lambs-wool hat (called a karakul), collarless tunic, and trousers, with a sports coat draped over the tunic and a robe draped over the overcoat, Hamid Karzai caught the eye. When he spoke, his eloquence grabbed people’s attention. Karzai knew, though, that speaking was no longer enough. He was still a fervent believer in nonviolence. At the same time he came to realize that the only way to defeat a powerful, violent group such as the Taliban was with force. So while

9/11 changes everything

The Buddhas of Bamyan were two ancient statues of Buddha that were carved on the side of a cliff in Bamiyan valley, located northwest of Kabul. In 2001, the Taliban destroyed the statues because they were believed to be un-Islamic. Since the destruction of the statues, there has been worldwide support to have the structures rebuilt.

continuing to speak out, Karzai also began making contact with tribal warlords throughout Afghanistan. By doing so, he was laying the groundwork for future military action.

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Hamid Karzai Everything changed for Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan, and the world on September 11, 2001. On that date, under orders from Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda terrorists attacked the United States, using hijacked commercial airliners as weapons. Two planes struck the World Trade Center in New York City early that morning. A third plane flew into the Pentagon, near Washington, D.C. A fourth plane, probably also headed toward Washington, crashed into a field in Pennsylvania after the plane’s passengers fought back against the hijackers. By the end of that day, more than 3,000 people were dead. The twin towers of the World Trade Center had collapsed into smoking ruins, and Afghanistan found itself at the center of the world’s attention.

The United States Retaliates It quickly became evident that Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda were responsible for the attacks. Bin Laden himself issued videotapes, claiming responsibility and promising future attacks. The world also blamed the Taliban for continuing to protect bin Laden. The United States and its allies made clear their intention to capture bin Laden and to drive the Taliban from power. The people of Afghanistan would no longer be fighting the Taliban alone. In October of 2001, the United States, along with Great Britain and a coalition of other nations, began military action against the Taliban. They began with air strikes against Taliban strongholds, and in areas where it was thought that bin Laden was hiding. This operation, known as Operation Enduring Freedom, also included U.S. ground forces fighting alongside the Northern Alliance. Just days before the fighting began, Hamid Karzai reentered Afghanistan. He knew that now was the time to pick up a gun and fight. He also knew that he was one person the Taliban did not want inside Afghanistan. If he was discovered entering the country he would be killed. But he felt that now the real battle was about to begin. As head of the Popolzai, he needed to be

9/11 changes everything with his people. He recounted those days in a 2002 interview with the Academy of Achievement: By the first of October of 2001, just a month and a few days after 9/11, I was one day sitting with four of my colleagues and I told them that Afghanistan cannot have any more of this. Let’s move in and the world community might help us. They said, “No, the world will not help us.” I said, “They will.” They said, “You have been telling us this for five or six years. Nobody has helped.” I said, “This is a different time. Think of New York. Think of what happened there. The world has woken up. Let’s move into Afghanistan. Let’s move into the heart of the Taliban. In the morning before we moved into Afghanistan, I told my colleagues, I said, ‘Listen, friends, we are moving into Afghanistan. It’s taken over by terrorists. It’s taken over by Taliban. It’s taken over by all sorts of foreign people that have come to Afghanistan that are ruining life for us and for the rest of the world. We might be captured the moment we enter Afghanistan and be killed. Are you willing to face that?” I also said, “we have 60 percent chance of death and 40 percent chance to live and survive.” Winning was no consideration. I mean we could not even think of that. They said, “All right, let’s do it. We got on two motor-bikes. We drove into Afghanistan, straight from the Pakistani border.

It was not an easy journey. They had four flat tires but avoided capture by the Taliban. They arrived, tired and hungry, in Kandahar City, the heartland of the Taliban. There they spent the night in the house of a villager who offered his protection. The next morning the villager approached Karzai and asked him what he planned to do. Karzai told the man that he planned to get rid of the Taliban. Pointing out that Karzai had only four supporters and two motorbikes, the villager told him that if he stayed in Kandahar he was certain to be captured by the Taliban. He urged Hamid to go to the mountainous central

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On September 11, 2001, Islamic extremists crashed two planes into the towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, killing approximately 3,000 people. A third plane crashed into the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and a fourth plane that was headed for the White House crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. Al Queda leader Osama bin Laden took responsibility for the terrorist attacks.

9/11 changes everything region of Afghanistan. There he would have a better chance to hide from the Taliban and have time to organize a resistance. That’s exactly what Hamid Karzai did. The next day, the villager’s cousin, a taxi driver, drove them into central Afghanistan. In a village near the regional capital of Uruzgan, he met with local tribal leaders. They urged Karzai to contact the United States and ask for weapons to fight the Taliban, something that Karzai was reluctant to do. They also urged him to ask the United States to bomb Taliban command centers. This second request surprised Karzai. He was shocked to learn that the Afghan people hated the Taliban so much that they were willing to have the country bombed—anything to help get rid of them. Karzai moved from village to village, speaking with and attracting more and more people. He let them know that he was back in the country and that he needed their help to fight the Taliban. Unfortunately, the Taliban had also learned that he was back in Afghanistan. Fifteen hundred armed Taliban soldiers, including Arabs and Pakistanis, were sent to attack Karzai and his supporters. The villagers came to him and asked whether he wanted to face the Taliban where he was or to go deeper into the mountains. Unsure about what to do, Karzai asked one of the villagers what he thought. He also asked him what he thought would happen if he and his supporters remained where they were. As Karzai told the Academy of Achievement: He said, “Hamid, if you face them here, they will come with their rocket launchers…with the RP-7s”—RP-7 is a rocket thing—“And they will blow up our women and children and their flesh would be hanging on trees.” When I heard this, I was shaken, terrified. The imagination that the children would be blown up and there would be these trees with— their flesh would be spread on trees? I said, “No, no, no, of course I don’t want to face them here. Then what should I

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On November 13, 2001, Kabul became free of Taliban rule. In this photograph an Afghan man celebrates the removal of the Taliban by listening to music, an activity that was once banned.

do? He said, “Go to the mountains.” I said, “All right, let’s go to the mountains.” I asked people, “Who is willing to go with me?” Fifty people said, “We’ll go with you.” And we began with the journey. We went into the mountains.

It took Karzai and his followers 13 hours to arrive at their new hideout in the middle of the mountains. There they found

9/11 changes everything one man, his wife, and their two children. On that first day, that one man and his family fed 50 people. The second day there were 90 people. The third day there were 120. The villager fed them all. Karzai’s supporters were concerned about their lack of weapons. How could they fight the Taliban basically unarmed? Several of the elders approached Karzai. Once again, they asked him if he could call the United States and ask for weapons. Karzai thought about it. He realized that without sufficient weapons he and his supporters stood no chance against the Taliban. He also knew that through years of travel to the United States he had made many friends in high places. These friends knew him and supported his struggle for Afghan freedom. Karzai did call the United States. The Americans, knowing who he was, did agree to send food, ammunition, and weapons. How were they going to get the supplies to him? Karzai and his people were in a hard-to-reach mountainous region of Afghanistan. Even the local tribespeople couldn’t give him an exact location of where he was. A solution was reached. Karzai was able to give the United States a rough idea of his whereabouts. The United States told Karzai to light four fires that night so they could pinpoint his location. The fires worked, and U.S. forces were able to drop him his badly needed supplies. Karzai received his equipment not a moment too soon. The very next day, 400 Taliban troops attacked Karzai’s position. Karzai had fewer than 200 untrained soldiers, but, with their newly acquired weapons, they were able to hold off the attack. Communications between his forces was sketchy, though, and Karzai was not sure if they’d won or lost the battle. Fearing the worst, they began to scatter. They quickly learned though that the Taliban themselves had fled, and the area was now free.

Kabul Is Recaptured On November 13, 2001, the Northern Alliance recaptured Kabul from the Taliban. The city overflowed with happiness.

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Hamid Karzai meets with tribal leaders in a house once occupied by Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar in Kandahar, Afghanistan, on December 10, 2001. Following the removal of the Taliban, Karzai became the leader of the interim government until 2004, when he was elected president of Afghanistan.

People played long-banned music and threw flowers at the allied troops. The Northern Alliance, with the assistance of the U.S. military, had managed to recapture much of Afghanistan from the Taliban. The city of Kandahar, though, was still in Taliban hands.

9/11 changes everything Karzai and his militia, which had grown to nearly 4,000 strong, began moving toward the city. The United States offered him supplies and armed security. Karzai was at first reluctant to accept more American aid. He was afraid that the Afghan people were leery of foreign military aid and involvement. He felt that the Afghans should fight their own battles. He was finally convinced, though, that the Taliban were too well armed and that it would be impossible to defeat the Taliban entirely on his own. With the help of the U.S. Army’s 5th Special Forces Group and U.S. air strikes, Hamid Karzai’s militia was able to advance to within 20 miles (32 km) of Kandahar. There, they received word that Mullah Mohammed Omar agreed to surrender Kandahar to Karzai. On December 5, 2001, the surrender became official. Hamid Karzai, with the aid and assistance of the United States and its allies, had put an end to Taliban rule. But, although the Taliban no longer were in charge of the country, they remained (and still remain) a serious problem to Afghan stability. Many members of the Taliban (as well as al Qaeda) refused to give up their weapons as promised in the agreements of surrender. They simply fled to the mountains and countryside to their homes. Mullah Mohammed Omar disappeared, as did Osama bin Laden. To date, neither Omar nor bin Laden has been found, but the search continues.

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Rebuilding a Nation With the Taliban defeated, Afghanistan once again found itself at

a crossroads. Who was going to rule the country? What form would the government take? Should Afghanistan return to being a monarchy? Could it become a democratic society? Who would determine what Afghanistan would become? The most pressing need was to establish an interim government that could work to resolve those questions. U.S. officials’ first instinct was to ask former king Zahir Shah to take the job. Although an elderly man of 87, he was still in good health. It was thought that he could serve as a much-needed symbol of unity for the nation. Another possibility was Burhanuddin Rabbani, whom most of the world still considered Afghanistan’s legitimate leader. Zahir Shah, though, thought it was time for a new leader. Since Karzai had established excellent relations with the United States, the former king thought that his old friend should head Afghanistan’s interim government. Rabbani agreed.

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rebuilding a nation The United Nations organized a conference. There the four major Afghan factions would meet and discuss who would lead the new government. One of those factions was the Northern Alliance, which represented the ethnic Tajik, Uzbek, and Hazara groups. The other three factions represented the Pashtuns, Afghanistan’s largest ethnic group. One of these factions represented Zahir Shah. A second faction, called Cyprus Process, was made up of politicians from the western part of Afghanistan. They had close relations with Iran. The last faction was made up of Afghan exiles living in Pakistan. The group met for nine days. On December 5, 2001, an agreement was reached. Hamid Karzai would lead the new Afghan interim government for a six-month period. Moments before learning the news, Karzai was nearly killed when a U.S. missile went off-course and slammed into a building that Karzai was in. He was wounded, and eight others were killed. In fact, the nurses were still cleaning the blood from his face when he got the phone call telling him of his appointment. Where was he to begin? The economy was in shambles. Public education had virtually ended. Society was in disarray, with millions of Afghans living in the country as refugees, or outside the country in exile. Most of all, people were afraid. Crime was rampant. People didn’t feel safe in the street, or even in their own homes. Bandits and warlords ruled vast sections of the country. One prominent warlord was General Abdul Rashid Dostum. An Uzbeki who had fought alongside both the Northern Alliance and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, he announced he would not even recognize the new government.

Start of a Presidency Hamid Karzai took office on December 22, 2001. Despite the enormity of the task ahead of him, Karzai set immediately to work. Demonstrating to the world that Afghanistan could build

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On December 22, 2001, Hamid Karzai (right) takes the oath of office as the interim prime minister of Afghanistan while former president Burhanuddin Rabbani (left) looks on. Karzai’s inauguration as prime minister was a peaceful transfer of power, a great change from the tumultuous past two decades in Afghanistan.

a stable government was one of his top priorities. To prove his ability to rule, the leadership of the new government was made up from a wide spectrum of Afghan society, including two women. Sima Samar was named minister of women’s affairs, and Suhaila Seddigi became minister of public health. This was

rebuilding a nation an important step for the government to take, demonstrating to the world Karzai’s deep commitment to women’s rights. Getting the world’s approval was essential. Afghanistan was almost totally dependent on the world’s support. One of the first things that Karzai did upon taking office was to travel the world in search of financial support, as he had done so many times. The world responded, anxious to rebuild an Afghanistan that would no longer serve as a sanctuary for terrorists. U.S. financial aid, Turkish peacekeeping troops, and German vows to rebuild Afghanistan’s police force were some of the results. Karzai also began the slow process of reopening schools, opening them to both boys and girls. He established a banking system. He also made the first of many attempts to disarm the warlords and their militias. Millions of Afghan exiles responded to Karzai’s efforts to rebuild the country. In the first few months of his chairmanship, more than 200,000 exiles returned to their homes. By March of 2003, nearly one million refugees had returned from camps in Pakistan and Iran. Those that returned to Kabul found a city in ruins, with little water, electricity, available housing, or other basic necessities. They often found themselves living in conditions worse than the refugee camps they’d been in. Those that returned to the countryside found that four years of drought had left most farmland parched and arid. Three-quarters of Afghanistan’s livestock had died during the drought. Despite the hardships, people still wanted to return to their country. They were anxious to contribute to the nation’s reconstruction. In April of 2002, the former king, Zahir Shah, returned to the land he ruled for 40 years. It was his first time back in Afghanistan since his overthrow in 1973. It was a time of great celebration throughout the nation. By coming home, he showed his hope for Afghanistan’s future and demonstrated his belief in Karzai’s leadership. To this day, he lives in the

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HAMID KARZAI presidential palace. He remains a symbol of the country’s past, before the days of war and terrorism. At the end of Karzai’s six-month term in office, the country could see changes for the better, and hope was in the air. Because of this, Hamid Karzai was easily reelected as head of the government. This time, though, he was chosen by a nationwide loya jirga. Close to 1,500 delegates, representing nearly every walk of Afghan society, elected him as the nation’s president. In name Karzai was president of all of Afghanistan. The reality was something quite different. Warlords still controlled much of the country. They ruled areas where the central government still had little or no power or influence. In an attempt to unify the nation, Karzai named some of the best-known warlords to positions of prominence in the new government. By doing so, he hoped to have some measure of control over them and to show them that a unified government was in the best interests of the people as a whole. The appointments angered others, however. They felt that the warlords were criminals who should be brought to justice. Karzai knew that justice was important, but he felt that rebuilding a stable country had to take priority. For the next year and a half, along with his other responsibilities as president, Karzai oversaw the creation of Afghanistan’s new constitution. After much debate, the new Afghan constitution was approved in a loya jirga and signed by Karzai on January 26, 2004.

Major Changes in Afghanistan The new constitution calls for a strong presidency and a bicameral (two chamber) parliament. Direct elections are to be held for the presidency and the lower house, the Wolesi Jirga. The upper house, the Meshramo Jirga, will consist of diplomats and experts to be named by provincial councils, district councils, and the president.

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Former Afghan king, Mohammed Zaher Shah (left) looks on as newly elected President Hamid Karzai (right) implements Afghanistan’s first democratic constitution on January 26, 2004. The constitution called for a government with a presidency, and a two-chamber parliament.

The constitution names Islam as Afghanistan’s sacred and state religion and states that no laws may contradict the beliefs and provisions of Islam. Followers of other religions are “free to exercise their faith and perform their religions rites,” but only within the limits of the law. Citizens are guaranteed the right to liberty, privacy, peaceful assembly, and expression, as well as freedom from

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HAMID KARZAI torture. Women are protected equally before the law; however, the tenets of Islam are given the most moral significance. The new constitution was one more attempt to carefully balance the demands of the reformists and those of traditional Muslims. In addition, the nation’s first presidential elections were set for July 5 of that year. Due to ongoing security concerns and the difficulty of registering millions of first-time voters, the elections were postponed twice. Nationwide presidential elections finally took place on October 9, 2004. That day was a milestone in Afghan history. Despite traditions and the threat of Taliban violence, more than threequarters of Afghanistan’s nearly 10 million registered voters turned out to vote. Eighteen candidates were in the running, including warlords, religious candidates, monarchist candidates, and Northern Alliance candidates. Against them, Karzai won a smashing victory. He garnered 55.4 percent of the total votes and received three times more votes than any other candidate. Despite the country’s continuing problems, the majority of voters still trusted President Karzai to lead them. Parliamentary elections were held the following year, on September 18, 2005. The process was marred by violence (19 polling places were attacked by the Taliban, and one dozen people were killed) and a lower voter turnout than the presidential elections of the previous year. But the overall success of the elections proved that Afghanistan and its people are still committed to democracy. Having a democratic government is definitely a positive step in Afghanistan’s development. The government, though, is still not in control of large parts of the country. Because of this, Karzai’s presidency is under constant threat. Since 2002, Karzai, as well as other government officials, has faced several assassination attempts. In late 2002, one of Karzai’s three vice presidents, the warlord Haji Abdul Qadir, was assassinated. He and his son-in-law were attacked by two

rebuilding a nation gunmen who fired 48 bullets into the car, killing them both. Security forces were unable to protect them. Qadir’s assassination caused many former warlords to question their commitment to the new government. If government security forces could not keep them safe, how could they help keep the people of Afghanistan safe? Why should the warlords risk their lives working for a unified government? If they were home in their own territories, they’d be safely protected by their own militia. Karzai quickly moved on this problem by asking the United States to help provide more security. Although this did help solve the initial problem, it created a new one. His growing reliance on America made him look weaker and more dependent on America then ever before.

Attempts on Karzai’s Life Even with U.S. assistance, the violence continued. The country celebrated the eighty-third anniversary of its independence from Great Britain in August of 2002. The next month, a bomb exploded in a taxi in Kabul, killing 26 and injuring more than 150. It is believed to have been the work of al Qaeda, although this has never been proven. On the same day, Karzai was in Kandahar, attending the wedding of his youngest brother, Abdul Wali. Four hours after the bomb exploded in Kabul, a government security worker named Abdul Rahman walked up to Karzai’s open car window and fired four times. One of the bullets, it was later determined, missed Karzai by mere inches. Rahman was shoved to the ground by a bystander, and U.S. Special Forces leapt out of their car and into action. By the time the dust had settled, Rahman, the bystander, and one U.S. bodyguard were dead. Karzai remained calm and unruffled by the attack. He told reporters, “I’ve been through this before. I’ve been hit three times at summits. Did that stop us from fighting? My father was assassinated by terrorists. Did that stop him from fighting against them? I will not stop. I’ll continue.”

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HAMID KARZAI Two months later, Karzai narrowly avoided assassination once again. An Iraqi Kurd named Bokam Akram Khorani was sent by the Taliban on a suicide mission. He was ordered to kill Karzai when he returned to Afghanistan after a trip to the United States. Khorani arrived too late to kill Karzai. He changed his plans and attempted to kill Defense Minister Mohammad Qassem Fahim. Security forces captured him before he could act; he had 18 pounds of explosives strapped to his body. In addition to suicide bombers, Karzai was facing a nation still ruled in large part by warlords and awash with weapons. It is estimated that the warlords controlled more than 8 million guns throughout the country. This has helped give them control over the vast majority of the nation. International aid workers have had difficulty working outside of Kabul due to safety concerns. Dozens of relief workers have been assassinated. Hamid Karzai has been called “the mayor of Kabul” because his control barely exists beyond the Kabul city limits. He realized that he must effectively disband and disarm the warlord’s militias. This had to happen if he was to have any hope of making the government the sole source of power and security in Afghanistan. Progress has been made in disarming the militias. In 2003, Karzai announced a plan called DDR (demilitarization, demobilization, and reintegration). He promised that this would demobilize the militias by mid-2004, just before the presidential elections. Progress was slow, however, and, on July 14, 2004, Karzai signed an additional decree threatening the warlords. The decree stated that if they failed to comply with DDR, they “will be considered disloyal and rebellious.” This, along with assistance from the United States, seems to have helped turn the tide. By 2006, 63,000 (out of an estimated 100,000) former rebels had been disarmed and demobilized, and 97 percent of known heavy weapons were collected and secured.

rebuilding a nation Karzai has also reached out through the Taliban reconciliation program. This offers amnesty and reintegration into society for Taliban members who have not committed serious crimes. Although these efforts have worked, the last months of 2005 and the first quarter of 2006 have seen a renewed upswing in violence, with increased use of improvised explosive devices and suicide bombs. In April of 2006, Mullah Omar was quoted as saying, “We will intensify suicide attacks to the extent that we will make the land beneath their feet like a flaming oven.” Throughout 2006, the Taliban intensified its efforts to regain control of Afghanistan. In November 2006, U.S. Central Intelligence Director General Michael V. Hayden warned that both the Taliban and al Qaeda were in a “bloody insurgency” in the southern and eastern regions of the country. The second major problem facing Karzai is Afghanistan’s illicit narcotics trade. Afghanistan is the world’s largest single producer of opium poppies, which are the raw ingredient used to manufacture heroin. More than 90 percent of the heroin sold in Europe comes from Afghanistan. Approximately 2.3 million Afghans, 10 percent of Afghanistan’s population of approximately 29 million, are involved in the drug trade. Since 2001 and the fall of the Taliban, the poppy harvest has skyrocketed. During their rule, the Taliban had banned all poppy products throughout the country. But after the Taliban were defeated, Afghan farmers quickly reverted to poppy farming. Poppies bring in huge amounts of money, more than almost any other crop. In addition, poppies are relatively easy to grow. They require little labor and very little water, which is especially valuable given Afghanistan’s arid and often drought-ridden landscape. Solving the opium problem is going to be difficult. For one thing, the Taliban was able to arrest a poppy farmer and release him with the understanding that he would immediately destroy his crop. Karzai is unable and unwilling to use this tactic. Second, the sheer amount of profits that poppies

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HAMID KARZAI provide makes farmers unwilling to turn to less profitable crops. Finally, the huge amount of money that poppies bring in allows the drug lords to bribe government officials to avoid prosecution. Attempts are being made to move Afghan farmers to other crops, including wheat and almonds. The United States has contributed $321 million to support programs that provide long-term rural development. In addition, in 2005, 247 conversion labs were shut down, and 42.9 metric tons of opium and 5.5 metric tons of heroin were seized. The United States is also working on effective elimination and eradication programs, seeking to reduce the level of poppy cultivation by convincing farmers not to plant poppies and by eradicating crops that have already been planted. Despite the continuing difficulties and violence, many aspects of life in Afghanistan have improved during Karzai’s presidency. In 2005, nearly 5 million children, including nearly 2 million girls, were attending school. In 2001, only one million students total were able to attend school. Many countries from around the world have helped build new schools and have donated textbooks and badly needed supplies. The United States alone has distributed more than 48.5 million textbooks throughout the countryside and has provided training for 75,000 new teachers. Even this hasn’t always gone smoothly. The Taliban has made continued attempts to disrupt the educational system with attacks and bombings of girls’ schools. Karzai responded to this by saying, “The people who destroyed and burned those schools are our enemies. They want the nation to be poor and needy.” Hamid Karzai continues his pleas for parents to send their children to school, knowing that in Afghanistan’s public education system lies the hope for the country’s future. The rights of women have greatly improved. In an Islamic, male-dominated society such as Afghanistan, women traditionally serve a subservient role as wife and mother. Their

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Following the end of Taliban rule, the treatment of women in Afghanistan has greatly improved. Women are now allowed to vote and to work outside of the home. In the photograph above, a female teacher holds a class in a partially damaged building in Kabul.

sole purpose is to take care of the family. Under the Taliban, the treatment of women was far worse than under traditional Islam. Under Karzai, 4 million Afghan women are registered to vote, and 3 of Karzai’s 32 cabinet ministers are women. In addition, at a recent ceremony in Kabul in honor of International Women’s Day, Karzai’s wife, Zinat, made her first-ever public appearance. This event had great symbolic meaning to millions

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HAMID KARZAI of Afghan women. By attending this event with her husband, they made public his commitment to equal rights for women. Zinat Karzai also makes a political statement by choosing not to wear a burka. Instead, she opts for a simple white scarf wrapped around her head. She does not believe that other women should wear burkas, either. She has also expressed an interest in returning to work as a doctor. Although many traditionalists oppose this, many other people hope that she will be able to do so. They would like to see her become a role model for Afghan women. Financial aid from around the globe, including pledges totaling nearly $7 billion from the United States, has been essential to Afghanistan’s growth. Because of this aid, the Afghan army now stands at 26,500 troops and is an ethnically balanced force from all areas of the country. It is beginning to achieve great success in stopping factional fighting in the north and west of Afghanistan. Sixty thousand national, border, and highway police are being trained, and more than 60,000 others have completed at least basic training. These are the people who will provide dayto-day security throughout the nation’s provinces and in Kabul itself. As they step up, U.S. and other international troops will be able to begin pulling out. In addition, roads are being built, courthouses are under construction, and health care coverage is rapidly expanding. The economy grew at a healthy rate of 13.6 percent from 2005 to 2006. Some of the strongest growth has been in construction, telecommunications, hotels and services, and agriculture. In March of 2003, Afghanistan even activated its first internet domain—“.af.” The arts, too, are returning to the country. In addition, an effort is being made to rebuild the historic buildings and sites destroyed by the long years of war. Since childhood, Hamid Karzai dreamed of Afghanistan becoming a free, independent, and successful nation. He truly wants nothing but the best for his people. His life has

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President Hamid Karzai arrives at Orly, France, in October 2005, to meet French president Jacques Chirac. A contributing factor to Karzai’s success is his skillful diplomacy.

been devoted to his country, and, under his presidency, real progress has been made. Under his leadership, and with assistance from allies around the world, Afghanistan has a chance to turn away from centuries of turmoil and civil war, and become truly one nation.

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HAMID KARZAI Hamid Karzai’s skills as diplomat and mediator have served him well in his efforts to bring his nation together. But like Shah Shuja in 1839, he relies on the presence of foreign troops to help keep him in power. To achieve continued progress, he will need to demonstrate stronger leadership and show his people that he is able to lead his nation independent of America’s help. He will need to beat back the growing resurgence of the Taliban and al Qaeda, and take a stronger stand against warlords and narcotics dealers. He has the determination and intelligence to make that happen. His vision of progress for Afghanistan and its people can become a reality.

Chronology Alexander the Great conquers the territory that would later become Afghanistan enroute to the Indian subcontinent.



330 b.c.



400

White Huns invade, destroying the Buddhist culture and leaving most of the country in ruins.



652

Introduction of Islam.



962–1149



1219–1221

Genghis Khan invades Afghanistan, leaving the country once again in ruins.



1364–1405

Tamerlane.



1747–1773

Rule of Ahmad Shah; the beginning of the Durrani Dynasty.



1800s



1839–1842



1878

Start of Second Anglo-Afghan War.



1893

The Durand Line establishes the border of Afghanistan and British India.







1921





Ghaznavid Dynasty; Afghanistan becomes the center of Islamic power and civilization.

Persia, Great Britain, and Russia all vie for control of Afghanistan. First Anglo-Afghan War.

The line divides Afghan tribal areas, causing longtime hostilities between Afghanistan and what would become Pakistan. Third Anglo-Afghan War. Once again, the British are defeated. Afghanistan gains independence and full control of its foreign affairs.

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1933

Zahir Shah ascends to throne. He will remain king until 1973.



1957

Hamid Karzai is born on December 24.



1973

The government of King Zahir Shah is overthrown by Mohammed Daoud.







1976–1982



1978





Daoud is executed and Afghanistan is declared the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan.



Late 1970s

The Afghan government, with assistance from the Soviets, kills and imprisons many Afghan leaders. Karzai’s father, Abdul Ahad Karzai, is imprisoned.



1979

On December 24, the Soviet army invades Afghanistan. It will occupy the country for the next 10 years.



1981

Abdul Ahad Karzai is released from prison. He and his family flee to safety in Quetta, Pakistan.



1982

After earning his master’s degree from Himachal Pradesh University,





Karzai joins his family in Quetta. He joins the Afghan National Liberation Front and quickly becomes its director of operations.



Early 1980s

The former king remains in exile in Rome, and Daoud declares Afghanistan to be a republic. Hamid Karzai attends college in Simla, India. The Communist PDPA, the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan, overthrows Prime Minister Daoud in the Saur (April) Revolution.

Karzai supports the Afghan resistance movement. These fighters become known as the mujahideen or “holy warriors.”

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1988

Facing continuing mujahideen resistance, the Soviets agree to a cease-fire and to withdraw their troops from Afghanistan.



1989

The last Soviet troops leave Afghanistan.



1992

Communist president Sayed Mohammed Najibullah is overthrown by the mujahideen. Burhanuddin Rabbani becomes president and declares Afghanistan an Islamic state. Karzai returns to Afghanistan to serve as deputy foreign minister.



1994

As rival warlords continue to fight against Rabbani’s government, lawlessness and anarchy spread throughout Afghanistan. Disgusted by the violence, Karzai resigns as deputy foreign minister and returns to Pakistan.



1996

Taliban influence spreads throughout Afghanistan. By the end of the 1990s the Taliban will control nearly 90 percent of the country.



1999

In January, Hamid Karzai marries his cousin, Zinat.



1999

On July 14, Hamid Karzai’s father is assassinated in Quetta, Pakistan, while leaving a mosque after evening prayers. In a display of defiance against the Taliban, Karzai returns his father’s remains home to Afghanistan to be buried.



2001

On September 11, the World Trade Center and Pentagon are attacked by al Qaeda terrorists. In early October, Karzai crosses the border into Afghanistan to fight the Taliban. Days later, U.S. air strikes against Afghanistan begin in an effort to remove the Taliban from power and to destroy

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al Qaeda. On November 13, the Northern Alliance recaptures Kabul from the Taliban. On December 5, remaining Taliban officials surrender to Hamid Karzai at Kandahar. On December 22, Karzai takes office as a leader of an appointed six-month interim government.

2002

Hamid Karzai is reelected president for an 18-month term of office by a nationwide loya jirga. Schools begin to reopen to both boys and girls. There are continuing Taliban and warlord attacks against the new government. One vice president is killed, and several unsuccessful attempts are made on Karzai’s life.



2003

Nearly 2 million refugees have returned to Afghanistan, facing overcrowded cities unable to provide basic services and a countryside ravaged by years of drought.



2004

Hamid Karzai is elected president in Afghanistan’s first free and democratic nationwide elections.



2005

Despite continuing Taliban resistance, education and health care systems gradually improve. Nationwide lections are successfully held to choose a new Parliament.



2006

The Karzai government’s control barely extends beyond Kabul, but the Afghan people remain optimistic about their future. The Taliban vows to continue the fight.

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Bibliography “Afghanistan.” Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Afghanistan. Amanpour, Christiane, and Andrea Koppel. “Hamid Karzai No Stranger to Leadership.” CNN. December 21, 2001. http://archives.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/central/12/21/ret.karzai.profile. Anderson, Jon Lee. “The Man in the Palace.” The New Yorker (June 6, 2005). “Chronological History of Afghanistan.” Afghanistan Online. http://www.afghan.web.com/history. Ewans, Martin. Afghanistan: A Short History of Its People and Politics. New York: Perennial, 2002. “Heir Apparent.” Al-Ahram Weekly Online. December 20­–26 2001, Issue No. 565. http://weekly.ahram.org.eg./2001/565/ 8war2.htm. “Interview: His Excellency Hamid Karzai President of Afghanistan.” Academy of Achievement, June 7, 2002. http://www. achievement.org/autdoc/printmember/kar0int-1. Kaplan, Robert. Soldiers of God: With Islamic Warriors In Afghanistan and Pakistan. New York: Vintage Books, 2001 Lancaster, John. “At Inauguration, Karzai Vows Action on Tough Issues.” Washington Post.com. December 8, 2004. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A421322004/Dec7.html. Onishi, Norimitsu. “For Afghan Clan, a Full Circle Back to Power.” New York Times. December 9, 2001. http://www. pulitzer.org/year/2002/public-service/works/story3/html.

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Quinn, Maureen. “Statement of Ambassador Maureen Quinn Coordinator for Afghanistan Before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on International Relations SubCommittees on Middle East and Central Asia and Oversight and Investigations.” March 9, 2006. http://wwwc.house.gov/ international_relations/109/qui030906.pdf. Todd, Anne M. Hamid Karzai. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers, 2004. Tyson, Ann Scott. “Red Carpet Leads Back to a Nation in Tatters.” Christian Science Monitor. January 31, 2002. http:// www.csmonitor.com/2002/0131/p03s01-usgn.htm.

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Further Reading Akbar, Said Hyder, and Susan Barton. Come Back to Afghanistan: A California Teenager’s Story. New York: Bloomsbury USA, 2005. Anderson, Jon Lee. “The Man in the Palace.” The New Yorker (June 6, 2005). Coll, Steve. Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden. Ewans, Martin. Afghanistan: A Short History of Its People and Politics. New York: Harper Perennial: 2002. From the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001. New York: Penguin Press: 2004. Hosseini, Khaled. The Kite Runner. New York: Riverhead Trade, 2004. Lamb, Christine. The Sewing Circles of Heart: A Personal Voyage Through Afghanistan. New York: Harper Perennial, 2004. Seirstad, Asne. The Bookseller of Kabul. New York: Back Bay Books, 2004.



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Photo Credits page: Frontis: ©JEAN-MARC LOOS 13: AP Photo/David Guttenfelder 16: AP Photo/Ahmad Masood, POOL 21: AP Photo/Suzanne Plunkett 24: Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY 28: Art Resource, NY 33: Library of Congress 39: Library of Congress 43: AP Photo 47: AP Photo/Henery S. Bradsher 51: AP Photo 55: ©Kapoor Baldev/Sygma/ Corbis 59: AP Photo 66: AP Photo



68: AP Photo 71: AP Photo/Liu Heung Shing 77: AP Photo/Laurent Rebours 82: AP Photo/Zahid 86: AP Photo/Dmitri Messinis 91: Bromeo/Art Resource, NY 94: AP Photo/Chao Soi Cheong 96: AP Photo/Amir Shah 98: AP Photo/6076482 102: AP Photo/Marco Di Lauro 105: AP Photo/Ed Wray 111: Melanie Frey/WpN 113: AFP/Getty Images

Cover: © Andreas Altwein/dpa/CORBIS

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Index Amanullah Khan, 36–39 Amin, Hafizullah, 53, 58, 59, 60, 61 Army of Retribution, 33 Asoka, 25 assassinations, 29, 55, 58, 106–108

Abdali, Ahmad Shah, 29 Abdul Wali (brother), 46 Abdur Rahman Khan, 35–36 Afghan Interim Authority (AIA), head of, 12 Afghan jihads, 67–69 Afghan languages, 22 Afghan National Liberation Front (ANLF), 67–68, 69–70 Afghanistan Amanullah and, 36–40 Britain, Russia and, 31–36 early history of, 23–26 end of monarchy in, 54–57 geography of, 18–20 Hamid Karzai as leader of, 101–104 invasion of, 14, 61, 62–63 Islam introduction into, 26–29 Mohammed Zahir Shah and, 40–44 Osama bin Laden in, 83–84 Pakistan and, 49–51 people of, 20–23 rebellion of against Soviet Union, 65–72 rebuilding of, 108–114 recent changes in, 104–107 agriculture, 23, 110 Ahmad Shah Abdali, 29 Ahmad Shah Durrani, 22, 29, 30 al Qaeda. See also bin Laden, Osama continued efforts of, 109 Kabul bombings and, 107 September 11 attacks and, 92–97 Taliban and, 15, 84 Alexander the Great, 24–25 Alexandria-Eschate, 25

Babur, 27–28 Bactrians, 25 Bamiyan statues, 25–26, 90–91 Bart, William Hay Mcnaghten, 33 beards, Taliban and, 81 bin Laden, Osama in Afghanistan, 83–84 embassy bombings and, 89–90 in Pakistan, 22 September 11 attacks and, 92–97 birthday of Hamid Karzai, 44, 45 Bouvier, Nicolas, 46–48 boycotts, 63 Britain, 31–36, 37, 42 Buddhism, 25–26 burkas, 82, 112–113 Carter, Jimmy, 62–63 China, Great Wall of, 25 Chirac, Jacques, 112 cleansing, 81 Cold War, 43–44 Communist Party, 52, 58 constitution, democratic, 104–106 Cyprus Process, 101 Cyrus the Great, 23, 24 Daoud Khan, Mohammed coup by, 51, 54, 55 execution of, 57–58 financial aid and, 43–44 Pakistan and, 49–50

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Ghaznavid Dynasty, 26 Ghazni, 26 Ghengis Khan, 23, 27, 28 Ghilzai Pashtuns, 20, 28, 32–33 Ghorids, 26 Ghulam Nabi Charki, 40 Gorbachev, Mikhail, 72 government, secular, 38 Great Bazaar, 33 Great Game, 31–36, 72 Great Wall of China, 25 Guagamela, Battle of, 24

Darius I, 23, 24 DDR (demilitarization, demobilization, and reintegration) program, 108– 109 deposed leaders, 14 Dost Mohammed Khan, 30–33, 34 Dostum, Abdul Rashid, 75 drugs, 109–110 Durand Line, 20, 22, 35–36, 42 Durrani, Ahmad Shah, 22, 29, 30 Durrani Empire, 29 Durrani Pashtuns, 20, 22

Habiba High School, 48 Habibullah Khan, 36, 40 Haq, Abdul, 70–72 Hayden, Michael V., 109 Hazaras, 23, 82 Hekmatyar, Gulbuddin, 60, 69, 75–76 Helmand chain of restaurants, 67 Helmand River, 19 heroin, 109–110 Himachal Pradesh University, 54–56 Hindu Kush Mountains, 19, 31–36 history, 17, 18–20 hospitality, 22 Hotaki Dynasty, 28 human rights violations, 81 Huns, 26

economic growth, 113 education of Hamid Karzai, 48–49, 54–56 recovery of Afghanistan and, 103, 110 Taliban and, 78, 81 elections, 12–14, 106 entertainment, Taliban and, 81, 86 Ephthalites, 26 Ewans, Martin, 23 Fahim, Mohammad Qassem, 108 famines, 53 farming, 19 First Anglo-Afghan War, 31–34 Foreign Relations Unit, 74, 76 fundamentalists, 60

India, independence of, 42 internet, 113 invasions, 14, 23–25, 31–36, 61–65 Islam introduction of, 26–27 as religion of Afghanistan, 51, 105 Taliban and, 14–15, 78, 80–81

Gandaharan art, 25 Gandamark, Treaty of, 34 Gandhi, Mohandas “Mahatma”, 55–56 Genghis Khan. See Khan, Ghengis geography, influence of, 18–20

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veils and, 42 women and, 106, 110–111 Islamic Society, 69 Islamic Unity of Afghan Mujahideen, 69 Istalif, 33 Jirga, 40–41 Kabul Amanullah Khan and, 36–37 bombings in, 107 Great Game and, 32–33, 34–35 Karzai family and, 46–48 recapture of from Taliban, 97–99 refugees in, 66–67 Kala Khan. See Habibullah Khan Kandahar, recapture of from Taliban, 99 Kanishki, 25 karakuls, 90 Karmal, Babrak, 52–53, 59, 61, 70 Karzai, Abdul Ahad (father), 45–46, 49, 85–87 Karzai, Abdul Ahmad (brother), 46 Karzai, Abdul Wali (brother), 46, 67, 107 Karzai, Ahmad Wali (brother), 46 Karzai, Faozia Roya (sister), 46 Karzai, Mahmood (brother), 46 Karzai, Qayum (brother), 46, 76 Karzai, Shah Wali (brother), 46 Karzai, Zinat (wife), 85, 111–113 Karzai subtribe, 45 KHAD, 70 Khair Mohmed Karzai, 40–41, 45 Khalis, Yunus, 69 Khalq faction of PDPA, 53, 58, 60 Khan Nashir, 28 Khorani, Bokam Akram, 108

Khyber Pass, 19, 34–35 kites, Taliban and, 81 Kuchis, 19, 21 Kushans, 25–26 land mines, 73 languages, 22, 55 legal system, Amanullah Khan and, 38 Lenin, Vladimir, 37 loya jirga, defined, 12 Mahmood Hotaki Elementary School, 48 Mahmud. See Yamin ul-Dawlah Mahmud Maiwandwal, Mohammad Hashim, 52 Marayan Empire, 25 marriages, arranged, 85 Massoud, Ahmed Shah, 75 Meshramo Jirga, 104 mines, 73 Mir Akbar Khyber, 58 modernization, 42 Mohammad Nadir Khan, 28–29 Mohammed Akbar Khan, 32 Mohammedzai Pashtuns, 30–31 Mojadeddi, Sibghatullah, 60–61, 68, 70, 74 monarchy, end of, 54–57 Mongols, 27 mountains, 19 Mughal Empire, 28 mujahideen, 14, 60–61, 67–69, 75 Muslims, 22, 23 Nadir Shah, Mohammed, 37, 40 Najibullah, Mohammed, 70, 71, 73–75 Nashir. See Khan Nashir

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Rabbani, Burhaduddin, 60, 69, 75–76, 89, 102 Rahman, Abdul, 107 Rawalpindi Agreement, 37 Reagan, Ronald, 63 reconciliation program, 109 refugees, 65–67 resistance movements, 60–61, 67–69 Retribution, Army of, 33 revenge, 22 rivers, 19 Russia, Great Game and, 31–36 Russian Revolution (1917), 36–37

National Islamic Front of Afghanistan (NIFA), 68 National Rescue Front, 70 nomads, 19, 21 nonviolence, belief in, 55–56, 90–91, 108–109 Northern Alliance, 97–99, 101, 106 Olympics, boycott of, 63 Omar, Maulvi Mohammed, 78–79, 98, 99, 109 opium, 109–110 opposition groups, 60–61, 67–69 Osama bin Laden. See bin Laden, Osama

Saddozai clan, 22 Safavids, 28 Samar, Sima, 102 sanctuary, 22 sandstone statues, 25–26, 90–91 Sassanids, 26 Saudi Arabia, aid from, 70, 74 Sayed Jamaluddin School, 48 Sayyaf, Abdul Rabb Rasuul al-, 60, 74 scorched-earth policy, 65–66 Second Anglo Afghan War, 34–35 secret police, 70 Seddigi, Suhaila, 102 Seleucids, 25 September 11 attacks, 15, 92–97 sharas, 74 sharecroppers, 65 Sher Ali, 34 Shiite Muslims, 23 Shinwari, Fazl Hadi, 16 Shinwari Pashtuns, 38–39 shoes, Taliban and, 81 Shuja Shah, 32 Silk Route, 25 Simla, college in, 54 Soviet Union

Pakistan aid to, 62–63 conflict with, 49–51 creation of, 35–36, 42 resistance movements in, 60–61, 78 Parcham faction of PDPA, 53, 60 Partition of 1947, 35–36 Party of Islam, 69 Pashtuns, 20–22, 53, 101 Patam Merajuddin, 16 People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), 52–53 Persians, 28 Peshawar, Pakistan, 60–61, 67 petroleum imports, 44 Pol-e-Charki prison, 58 police, training of, 113 Popolzai subtribe, 12, 22, 87 poppy plants, 109–110 prisons, 58 purges, 60 Pushtoonwali, 22 Qadir, Haji Abdul, 106–107

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Karzai family and, 46, 67, 76 support of Karzai’s efforts against Taliban by, 97 trade and, 50 Uruzgan, 95 Uzbeks, 22

aid from, 42–44, 54 Amanullah Khan and, 36–37 end of occupation by, 72–76 invasion by, 14, 61, 62–65 rebellion against, 65–72 trade and, 50 suicide bombings, 108, 109 Sunni Muslims, 23 Tajiks, 22, 38, 40 Taliban amnesty for, 109 assassination attempts and, 108 Bamiyan statues and, 26, 90–91 continued efforts of, 109, 110 creation of, 76–79 defeat of, 97–99 Osama bin Laden and, 89–90 reasons for Karzai’s initial support of, 83 rise of, 14–15, 80–83, 89 September 11 attacks and, 92–97 terrorists and, 84 women and, 111 Tamerlane, 27 Taraki, Nur Mohammad, 52–53, 58, 60 terrorism, Taliban and, 15, 84 Thatcher, Margaret, 72 Timur Shah, 30 Toynbee, Arnold, 20 toys, Taliban and, 81 trade routes, 23–25, 50 traditionalists, 60–61, 68 Treaty of Friendship, 37 tribalism, 19, 22, 95 United States aid from, 70, 97, 99, 107, 110, 113

veils, Islam and, 42 vendettas, 22 violence, disagreement with, 55–56, 90–91, 108–109 voting, 111 warlords, 107, 108–109 weapons left after wars, 73, 108–109 White Huns, 26 Wolesi Jirga, 52, 104 women improved rights of, 110–112 Islam and, 106 in new government, 102–103, 111 protection of, 106 Taliban and, 15, 81–82, 111 World War II, 41 Wulfi, 40–41 Yamin ul-Dawlah Mahmud, 26 Yaqub Khan, 34 Zahir Shah, Mohammed constitution and, 50–51 election of Hamid Karzai and, 15, 16 friendship of with Hamid Karzai, 88 rebuilding of Afghanistan and, 100–101, 103–105 rule of, 40–44 zoos, 48

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About the Authors attended Antioch College, where he majored in English and communications. A voracious reader since the age of three, Dennis is a freelance writer who has written several biographies for young adult readers. He lives in Houston, Texas, with his partner of 19 years, along with their two dogs and three cats.

Dennis Abrams

is the leading American historian of our time. He won the Pulitzer Prize for his books The Age of Jackson (1945) and A Thousand Days (1965), which also won the National Book Award. Professor Schlesinger is the Albert Schweitzer Professor of the Humanities at the City University of New York and has been involved in several other Chelsea House projects, including the series Revolutionary War Leaders, Colonial Leaders, and Your Government. ARTHUR M. SCHLESINGER, JR.

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