Hamid Karzai

Hamid Karzai, born on 24 December 1957 in Kandahar, served as Afghanistan’s seventh president from 2002 to 2014, and was the first to hold that office under the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, from 2004 to 2014. Before that, he chaired the Afghan Interim Administration from 2001 to 2002. He grew up in a politically active family: his father, Abdul Ahad Karzai, was Deputy Speaker of Parliament in the 1960s, and his grandfather, Khair Mohammad Khan, fought in the 1919 Third Anglo-Afghan War and served as Deputy Speaker of the Senate. The Karzai family were monarchists who backed the last king, Mohammed Zahir Shah; an uncle, Habibullah Karzai, represented Afghanistan at the UN and accompanied the king to meet U.S. President John F. Kennedy in the early 1960s.

Karzai attended Mahmood Hotaki Primary School in Kandahar and Sayed Jamaluddin Afghani School in Kabul, then graduated from Habibia High School in Kabul in 1976. That year he went to India as an exchange student, earning a master’s degree in international relations and political science from Himachal Pradesh University in Shimla in 1983. He then moved to Pakistan, where he raised funds for the Afghan mujahideen during the Soviet–Afghan War (1979–1989) and its aftermath. In early October 1988, he returned to Afghanistan to help the rebels take Tarinkot, mobilizing the Popalzai and other Durrani tribes and negotiating the defection of five hundred soldiers from the Soviet-backed government of Mohammad Najibullah. After Najibullah’s regime fell in 1992, the Peshawar Accords created the Islamic State of Afghanistan, and Karzai entered Kabul with mujahideen leaders. He briefly served as Deputy Foreign Minister under Burhanuddin Rabbani but was arrested by Mohammad Fahim—later his vice president—on suspicion of spying for Gulbuddin Hekmatyar; Karzai claimed he was actually trying to mediate between Hekmatyar and Rabbani. He fled Kabul in a vehicle provided by Hekmatyar.

When the Taliban emerged in the mid-1990s, Karzai initially recognized them as legitimate, hoping they would end violence and corruption. The Taliban asked him to be their ambassador, but he refused, believing Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was misusing them. He wanted to represent the Taliban at the UN, but the Taliban leader distrusted him due to his Western ties. Karzai lived in Quetta, Pakistan, among Afghan refugees, working to restore former king Zahir Shah and meeting him in Italy several times. He also visited Western embassies, including the U.S. embassy in Islamabad. In July 1999, his father was assassinated, and Karzai succeeded him as head of the Popalzai tribe. When the U.S. invaded Afghanistan in October 2001, Karzai led Pashtun tribes in and around Kandahar in an uprising against the Taliban, becoming a dominant political figure after the Taliban were removed later that year. At the December 2001 International Conference on Afghanistan in Germany, prominent Afghan figures selected him to chair the Interim Administration for six months. A 2002 loya jirga in Kabul then chose him as interim president for two years.

Karzai won the 2004 presidential election and became president of the Islamic Republic. He secured a second five-year term in the 2009 election, serving until September 2014, when Ashraf Ghani succeeded him. During his presidency, he was known internationally for building alliances among Afghanistan’s multi-ethnic communities and for strengthening ties with Pakistan. Later, his relationship with NATO and the United States grew strained. Critics faulted his stance on extremism and terrorism; he called the Taliban his brothers and warned that heavy-handed counterinsurgency would revive the insurgency. He urged the U.S. to focus on Pakistan’s support for Taliban leadership, but the U.S. largely ignored his requests. Karzai also faced accusations of corruption.

After the Taliban took Kabul in 2021, Karzai said they did not capture the city by force but were invited by him to prevent chaos. He argued that for the new Taliban government to gain international recognition, it needed internal legitimacy, achievable through a general election or loya jirga.