Hamid Karzai

President of the Afghan Transitional Authority
(pronounced “HA-mehd CAHRZ-eye”)
“Having experienced the ravages of war for 23 years and having been taken hostage by a group of
terrorists, we are once again free to determine our destiny.”
The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, located in Central Asia,
is a landlocked nation slightly smaller than Texas. It has a
total land area of 647,500 sq km (250,001 sq mi). It is
bordered on the north by the former Soviet republics of
Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan, on the east and
south by Pakistan, and on the west by Iran. A strip of land
less than 80 km (50 mi) wide and known as the Wakhan
corridor extends to the northeast. It forms a 76-km (47-mi)
border with China. The population was estimated in 2002 at
27.7 million, although decades of warfare make accurate
population counts impossible. The capital, Kabul, is located
in the east-central part of the country. The 2002 population
of Kabul was estimated at 2.1 million; a large number of
displaced persons, many of them refugees from neighboring
countries, returned to the city in 2002.
The average elevation is 1,200 m (4,000 ft). The towering
Hindu Kush mountain range, running southwest from the
Wakhan corridor in the northeast, has elevations of more
than 6,200 m (20,000 ft). In the provinces north of the Hindu
Kush the altitude drops to about 460 m (1,500 ft), enabling
farmers to grow cotton, fruit, grains, and other crops. The
central part of the country features a plateau with lush valleys
suitable for grazing sheep, goats, and camels. In the
southwest, the land is a barren desert where the temperature
extremes are the greatest found anywhere in the country.
Decades of violent civil and international conflicts have
caused widespread poverty, devastated the roads, bridges,
and infrastructure, and left the countryside riddled with
dangerous land mines. (The United Nations [UN] estimates
that 7–10 million land mines remain buried in Afghanistan,
rendering much farming and grazing land useless.) Earthquakes
in the northern Hindu Kush region, overgrazing, and
rampant deforestation by citizens in search of fuel and
building materials all combine to present the government in
2002 with the challenge of resurrecting even the most basic
services.
Pashtu and Dari (Afghani variant of Persian) are the
official languages. Dari is the language spoken in Kabul and
has historically been the principal language of Afghan literature,
government, and business. Many Afghans are bilingual
and almost all are Muslim.
POLITICAL BACKGROUND
The former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR)
occupied Afghanistan from 1979 until early 1989. By late
1987, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
(UNHCR) estimated that one million Afghans had died in the
fighting between Soviet troops and the mujahidin resistance
forces (supported by arms from the United States and Islamic
nations such as Pakistan). The Soviets withdrew in 1989,
partly because of instability in their own government. (The
USSR broke apart into independent states in 1991.) Afghanistan
experienced internal chaos and President Muhammad
Najibullah struggled to maintain control of the country as
pressure from the mujahidin and outside forces increased.
The country floundered, with rival factions battling for
control of the government. In 1992, the mujahidin gained
control of Kabul and Najibullah’s government fell.
An interim government was established by a coalition of
Islamic groups known as the Seven Party Alliance (SPA).
Rival groups continued to clash violently and UN attempts to
broker peace among the groups were unsuccessful.
Burhanuddin Rabbani became president of the Interim
Government in 1992, but maintaining control of the various
factions in the country proved nearly impossible. Alliances
continually shifted after President Rabbani took office; he
was scheduled to leave office in December 1994 but refused
on the grounds that political authority would disintegrate
totally.
One of the major forces vying for power was the Uzbek
militia of General Abdul Rashid Dostum, whose break with
Najibullah in early 1992 helped overthrow the communist
regime. In January 1994, Dostum led an unsuccessful
rebellion against Rabbani. Another faction was the Iranbacked
Hizb-e-Wahdat (Unity Party, an alliance of eight Shia
Muslim groups). In early June 1992 Hizb-e-Wahdat had
agreed to join the mujahidin regime but broke with Rabbani
in January 1994.
In 1994, a new group known as the Taliban (Students of
Religion, or Seekers) formed and began rallying to control the
country. Consisting of Islamic clerics and students from
seminaries that sprung up in Pakistan among the communities
of Afghan refugees, the Taliban movement came into
being after the war against the Soviets and Najibullah. The
Taliban seized control of the southeastern city of Kandahar in
November 1994 and continued to gather strength.
In February 1995, the Taliban gained control of areas on
the outskirts of Kabul and demanded that Rabbani surrender.
When Rabbani refused, and the Taliban rejected UN efforts
to include it in a peaceful transition, an 18-month stalemate
around Kabul ensued. In its drive to Kabul, the Taliban
amassed about 25,000 troops, a few hundred tanks, and ten
combat aircraft. In September 1996, Taliban victories east of
Kabul led to the destruction of the Rabbani government’s
defenses, and the government withdrew to the valley north of
Kabul. With the Taliban capture of Kabul, the Northern
Alliance formed, made up of differing factions that had one
thing in common: their passionate interest in ousting the
Taliban. Northern Alliance forces continued to fight for
control of the north.
In spring 2000, the Taliban, claiming a series of defections
from the Rabbani Northern Alliance camp, began preparations
for a renewed offensive to gain the remaining part of
Afghanistan not under their control. The Taliban government
was led by mujahidin fighter-turned-religious-scholar,
Muhammad Omar. He is thought to have been born in
Kandahar in 1962. Described as a determined man, Omar
had served as deputy chief commander in the Harakat-i-
Inqilab-i Islamic party of Mohammad Nabi Mohammadi
during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s.
Virtually unknown until the Taliban’s capture of Kandahar,
Omar remained a mysterious figure with reportedly strong
ties to Osama bin Laden and other Islamist radicals. Under
Omar’s Taliban government, the Afghan people were
subjected to harsh imposition of Islamic law. Women were
forbidden from working outside the home (except health
workers), girls’ schools were closed, and a strict Islamic dress
code was imposed. The Taliban lost international support as
it imposed harsh punishments on those who violated Islamic
law. The UN and other international aid organizations
(including UNHCR, UNICEF, Save the Children, and Oxfam)
cut back or ceased operations in protest; many staff members
were female and unable to adhere to the strict regulations.
Taliban control did restore peace by suppressing and
disarming members of rival militias. The roads were
reopened, leading to a greater availability of food in areas
under Taliban control.
When terrorists attacked the World Trade Center in New
York and The Pentagon in Washington, D.C., on 11
September 2001, international attention focused on Afghanistan.
Most experts implicated Osama bin Laden and his close
associate, Taliban leader Mullah Muhammad Omar, in the
attacks. The U.S. government, with support of its allies,
undertook a month of massive air attacks until the Taliban
was driven out of power in October 2001 and an interim
government was installed in December 2001. Hamid Karzai
was named chairman of the interim government.
In the weeks and months following the fall of the Taliban,
life in Afghanistan was fraught with danger. U.S.-led military
operations were ongoing. International peacekeepers, aid
workers, and Afghans became victims of grenade attacks, fire
fights, and bombings, making the security situation
precarious. Thus, the task of reconstruction and providing
aid to Afghanistan has proven difficult. In January 2002,
donor countries pledged US$4.5 billion for the reconstruction
effort. However, less than half of the amount earmarked for
2002 was ever actually delivered.
In June 2002, a loya jirga (council of elders) was convened
to choose a government to lead the country for 18 months to
two years until elections are held. Karzai was elected transitional
head of state, garnering 1,295 of a possible 1,575
votes. On 19 and 22 June Karzai introduced a 28-member
cabinet representative of many different ethnic and political
backgrounds. He named three vice presidents—Mohammed
Qasim Fahim, Karim Khalili, and Haji Abdul Qadir. Vice
President Qadir was assassinated on 6 July 2002. Karzai
himself narrowly escaped assassination on 5 September 2002,
as a gunman dressed in an Afghan military uniform shot at
him and Kandahar’s governor Gul Agha Sherzai as they were
getting into their car. On 22 November 2002, a plot to
assassinate Karzai or his defense minister, Mohammed Fahim,
was thwarted.
As of January 2003, there were still two million Afghan
refugees in Iran and approximately 1.5 million in Pakistan. In
2002, an estimated two million Afghans returned home.
PERSONAL BACKGROUND
Hamid Karzai was born 24 December 1957 in Karz, a village
near Kandahar. His father, Abdul Ahad Karzai, was a senator
in the Afghan parliament before the overthrow of King
Mohammed Zahir Shah in 1973. Hamid Karzai has eight
siblings, five of whom (four brothers and one sister) live in
the United States where they run a chain of Afghan restaurants,
Helmand (named after an Afghan province), with
establishments in Chicago, Boston, Baltimore, and San
Francisco. Karzai is a member of the Popolzai clan of
southern Afghanistan; the Popolzai are one of the clans
making up the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan, the
Pashtun. Throughout history, most of the country’s leaders
have been Pashtun; Karzai’s family and the family of the
former king, Mohammed Zahir Shah, are both from the
Popolzai clan.
After his early education was completed in Karz, Karzai
attended secondary school in Kabul. In December 1979, the
USSR invaded Afghanistan, beginning an occupation that
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would last until February 1989. The Karzai family fled the
country, taking up a life in exile in Quetta, Pakistan. At age
24, Hamid left to study political science at the Himachal
Pradesh University in Simla, India. Later (1985–86), he
studied journalism in Lille, France, at Ecole Superieure de
Journalism de Lille. As a student he was an enthusiastic
participant in the Afghan national sport, buzkashi, a game
similar to polo played on horseback by two teams.
Karzai and his wife, Zinat, a medical doctor, married when
Karzai was over 40, considered fairly late for marriage by
Afghan standards. Karzai’s aptitude for languages—he is
fluent in six languages including English—helps him in international
relations, notably with the powerful United States
and United Kingdom. He is a memorable figure, traveling in a
striking costume that combines business attire with traditional
ethnic garments, such as a lambskin cap and dramatic,
colorful cape.
RISE TO POWER
Hamid Karzai first became involved in the mujahidin
government of Burhanuddin Rabbani, serving as deputy
foreign minister from 1992 to 1994. As was the case during
the 1980s, the government in those years was immobilized by
ethnic infighting. When the Taliban took control of Kabul 27
September 1996, Karzai initially supported them; in fact, the
Taliban government unsuccessfully tried to name him as their
ambassador to the UN, but the UN did not recognize the
Taliban’s right to Afghanistan’s seat. Karzai and his father,
growing suspicious that the Taliban was being controlled by
foreign influences, broke with the Taliban and began to
criticize the religious movement while in exile in Quetta,
Pakistan. When Karzai’s father was assassinated in 1999 as
he walked home from a mosque, most in the government and
in international organizations attributed the act to members
of the Taliban.
Following his father’s death, Karzai became leader of the
Popolzai clan from his exile post in Quetta. He and his
followers continued to campaign against the repressive
Taliban regime, but they received little international attention
or support. Karzai frequently traveled to the United States
from Quetta to lobby for support to overthrow the Taliban.
His visits included stops at the University of Nebraska where
the faculty includes experts on Afghanistan; in 2001 Karzai
testified before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
When the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks against the
United States brought Afghanistan to the center of international
attention, U.S. government officials began to listen
more seriously to Karzai’s ideas. In October, Karzai secretly
entered Afghanistan in an attempt to build support for a plan
to oust the Taliban and to convene a loya jirga (council of
elders) to install a new government.
In 2001, after the Taliban government crumbled, the UN
convened a meeting in Bonn, Germany, of four Afghan
factions to begin to build a coalition government to lead the
country in its next stage of rebuilding. All factions agreed to
name Hamid Karzai as chairman of the interim administration;
in addition, the factions agreed that the popular
former king, Mohammed Zahir Shah, should return to
Afghanistan (from Italy, where he had been living in exile) to
play a symbolic role in the next administration. At a separate
meeting at the same time, representatives of UN member
nations were considering funding and other issues of support
for Afghanistan.
The loya jirga met from 11–19 June 2002 and Karzai was
elected president of the Transitional Authority. The meeting
of the loya jirga highlighted the power of faction leaders from
the mainly Tajik former Northern Alliance, who were influential
in assuring Karzai’s election.
LEADERSHIP
Karzai was initially designated leader of the interim
government established in December 2001; the interim
government prepared for the loya jirga in June 2002, which
elected Karzai president of the Transitional Authority. He was
to govern the country for 18 months to two years, until
elections are held.
In August 2002, Karzai made his first national address on
radio, focusing on the importance of national security. He
called for the building of a national army representing
Afghanistan’s diverse populations. Karzai emphasized that
having an army dedicated to protecting national sovereignty
would serve to unify the country.
In November 2002, Karzai fired 24 regional officials in an
attempt to curb abuses of power in office, including
corruption, allegations of drug trafficking, and disobeying the
law. Since becoming president, Karzai has struggled to
exercise authority outside of Kabul, as many provincial
warlords maintain control—including taxation, customs, and
security—over their territories. They use violence to resolve
ethnic and territorial disputes. In December, Karzai banned
political leaders from taking part in military activity as
another way of asserting authority over the warlords.
DOMESTIC POLICY
After assuming the leadership of Afghanistan’s interim
government, Karzai confronted problems of the most basic
sort—repairing roads to allow trade to resume, rebuilding
schools and medical clinics, and installing basic utilities such
as telecommunications, reliable electricity, and safe water. He
struck a conciliatory tone by issuing pardons for over 300
Taliban members who agreed to surrender their weapons.
Karzai also faced the need to build a new police force and
military defense, and a system for collection of taxes and
other revenues to begin to build self-sufficiency.
Karzai’s stated top priority was the restoration of peace
and security by bringing the conflicting factions of the
country together. The UN delegation charged with creating
the interim government put forward the names of 30
potential government ministers, representing the key factions
still holding power within the country. Representatives of the
Northern Alliance (made up primarily of Uzbeks and Tajiks),
the group that assumed control of the capital, Kabul, when
the Taliban collapsed, were named to three powerful ministries—
interior, defense, and foreign affairs. To reflect the
UN’s position that any new Afghan government must
guarantee women’s rights, two women were among those
recommended for ministerial positions. At the loya jirga held
in June 2002, 160 seats were guaranteed to women, a representation
of 11%.
Since becoming president of the Transitional Authority,
Karzai has devoted the majority of his time trying to heal
ethnic divisions, reining in the powerful warlords, arranging

for the security of the country, and surviving assassination
attempts. Karzai is guarded by U.S. Special Forces, who are
backed up by international peacekeepers. The Afghan police
are undertrained and the national army had, as of January
2003, only begun to take shape. Karzai also found it
necessary to negotiate with his defense minister, Mohammed
Fahim, whose ministry is dominated by ethnic Tajiks loyal to
him. The goal—to create a unified, well-trained army of
250,000 with all men ages 22 to 24 fulfilling two years of
military service—was little more than a plan on paper as of
early 2003.
Fahim, a former mujahidin leader, estimated that 20% of
the men serving in the Afghan military as of 2003 were
former Taliban fighters. Sizable weapons stocks had yet to be
handed over to the national army. International observers are
wary that, unless Karzai’s government can wield complete
control over the military, Taliban and al-Qaeda factions could
channel arms to fighters in and outside Afghanistan. In
addition, the military must address the dangerous problem of
the millions of land mines remaining in the country; it will
likely require 12 years and us$500 million to clear the vast,
mountainous terrain.
In September 2002, Karzai announced a nationwide
campaign to eliminate the production of poppies (used to
produce opium and heroin), one of Afghanistan’s major
crops. The country is the main source of opium and heroin
sold in Europe. Karzai stated: “The drug destroys our
agriculture; it destroys our crops; it destroys our good family
life. Worst of all, it goes hand and hand with terrorism. It
funds terrorism in Afghanistan and the rest of the world.”
In November 2002, four Kabul University students were
killed during protests demanding food and electricity. Karzai
fasted in response and called the students’ families to console
them. “Just the basics is all they wanted,” he said.
Although as of January 2003 Karzai had yet to travel to
most areas of his own country to see the problems firsthand,
he was attempting to improve the quality of life of Afghans
and to make the government more representative, which will
give his administration more credibility.
FOREIGN POLICY
Karzai, in an early address after becoming chairman of the
interim government, stated, “We will strive to build a
government that responds to the wishes of our people and
behaves as a responsible member of the international
community, to whom we owe a great deal.”
In January 2002 he traveled to the United States, where he
was seated next to First Lady Laura Bush for President
George W. Bush’s State of the Union address. Karzai,
speaking at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., to
an audience that included many expatriated Afghanis,
encouraged Afghanis living outside their country to return to
join him in rebuilding their nation. During his North
American visit, he also addressed the UN General Assembly.
His travels in the weeks following his appointment
included the United Kingdom, Germany, and India. Wherever
he spoke, he urged foreign government officials and business
people to consider investing in Afghanistan. With the Central
Bank of Afghanistan essentially bankrupted by the Taliban
regime, the interim administration actively sought international
help to build a financial system that could eventually
support Afghanistan’s participation in the global economy.
Karzai also emphasized that, for the immediate future,
Afghanistan would depend heavily on the International
Security Assistance Force (made up of forces from the United
States, United Kingdom, Canada, and others) to keep the
peace in urban areas and remote villages. He also noted that
the Afghan people regard the presence of the international
forces as evidence that Afghanistan won’t be abandoned at
this critical stage in their development as a nation.
Karzai also traveled to Paris, France, where he joined
President Jacques Chirac at the opening of a museum
exhibition of Afghan art and sculpture, most of which had
been collected by French archaeologists with the assistance of
the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO), who feared the Taliban would
destroy these important artifacts from Afghanistan’s rich
history. The artifacts will be returned to Afghanistan when
the Museum of Kabul has sufficiently recovered to preserve
and protect them.
Karzai met with U.S., Japanese, and European leaders
after becoming president. In late September 2002, Karzai also
traveled to the Persian Gulf to solicit aid for Afghanistan’s
reconstruction and security, speaking with leaders from Saudi
Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. However, the
large amount of international money pledged for reconstruction
has been slow to arrive.
U.S. and European intelligence agencies agree that, as of
January 2003, al-Qaeda and the Taliban were regrouping in
camps on both sides of the border with Pakistan. Many are
allied with a former mujahidin commander, Gulbuddin
Hekmatyar. The security threat posed by these groups is
another challenge confronting Karzai he struggles to lead
Afghanistan to stability.
ADDRESS
Office of the Afghan Transitional Authority
Kabul, Afghanistan
REFERENCES
“Hamid Karzai Profile,” Afghan Politics, http://www.afghaninfo.
com/Politics/Hamid_Karzai_Profile.htm (April 22,
2002).
Gannon, Kathy. “‘Loya Jirga’ Endorses New Afghan
Cabinet,” The Independent, http://
news.independent.co.uk/world/asia_china/
sotry.jsp?story=307113 (January 14, 2003).
“Karzai Moves to Rein in Warlords,” BBC News, http://
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/2580217.stm (January 14,
2003).
“Karzai Survives Assassination Attempt,” PBS Online
Newshour, http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/
afghan_09-05-02.html (January 14, 2003).
“The Rebirth of a Nation,” The Economist, January 11,
2003, pp. 33–34.
“Rebuilding a Battered Afghanistan,” CBSNews, http://
www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/12/16/null/
main533217.shtml (January 14, 2003).
Profile researched and written by Jeneen Hobby, Ph.D. (2/2003).