Hamid Karzai (born 24 December 1957) is an Afghan politician who served as the seventh president of Afghanistan from 2002 to 2014, particularly as the first president of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan from 2004 to 2014. He also served as chairman of the Afghan Interim Administration from 2001 to 2002.
Born in Kandahar, Karzai graduated from Habibia High School in Kabul and later received a master's degree from Himachal Pradesh University, Summerhill, Shimla, India, in the 1980s. He moved to Pakistan where he was active as a fundraiser for the Afghan mujahideen during the Soviet–Afghan War (1979–1989) and its aftermath. He briefly served as Deputy Foreign Minister in the Islamic State of Afghanistan government. In July 1999, Karzai's father was assassinated and Karzai succeeded him as head of the Popalzai tribe. In October 2001 the United States invasion of Afghanistan began and Karzai led the Pashtun tribes in and around Kandahar in an uprising against the Taliban; he became a dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001. During the December 2001 International Conference on Afghanistan in Germany, Karzai was selected by prominent Afghan political figures to serve a six-month term as chairman of the Interim Administration.
He was then chosen for a two-year term as interim president during the 2002 loya jirga (grand assembly) that was held in Kabul, Afghanistan. After the 2004 presidential election, Karzai was declared the winner and became President of Afghanistan. He won a second five-year term in the 2009 presidential election; this term ended in September 2014, and he was succeeded by Ashraf Ghani.
During his presidency, Karzai was known in the international community for being an alliance builder between Afghanistan's multi-ethnic communities. He also strengthened Afghanistan–Pakistan relations. In later years, his relationship with NATO and the United States became increasingly strained. Karzai's stance on extremism and terrorism was criticized. Karzai described the Taliban as his brothers, and warned that the heavy-handed counterinsurgency in Afghanistan would only revive the Taliban insurgency against the former Afghan government. Instead he urged the US to instead focus on subduing Pakistan's support for the Taliban leadership, but the US largely ignored his requests. Karzai was also accused of corruption.
After the Taliban takeover of Kabul in 2021, Karzai stated the Taliban did not capture the city by force, but rather were invited by him in order to prevent chaos. He said that in order to gain international recognition, the new Taliban government needed internal legitimacy, which could be achieved through a general election or loya jirga.
Early life and beginning of political career
Karzai was born on 24 December 1957 in the Karz area of Kandahar City in southern Afghanistan. Hamid belongs to the Popalzai tribe of Durrani Pashtuns and was the local chief of the tribe in Kandahar Province. His father, Abdul Ahad Karzai, served as the Deputy Speaker of the Afghan Parliament during the 1960s. His grandfather, Khair Mohammad Khan, had fought in the 1919 Third Anglo-Afghan War and was the Deputy Speaker of the Senate. The Karzai family were monarchists and remained strong supporters of Mohammed Zahir Shah, the last king of Afghanistan. His uncle, Habibullah Karzai, served as the Afghan representative at the UN and is said to have accompanied King Zahir to the United States in the early 1960s for a special meeting with U.S. President John F. Kennedy.
Hamid Karzai attended Mahmood Hotaki Primary School in Kandahar and Sayed Jamaluddin Afghani School in Kabul. He graduated from Habibia High School in Kabul in 1976. After graduating, he went to India as an exchange student in 1976, and studied for a master's degree in international relations and political science at Himachal Pradesh University in Shimla, obtaining his degree in 1983. Karzai then moved to Pakistan and worked as a fundraiser for the anti-communist Afghan rebels during their 1980s uprising against the rule of Soviet-backed Afghan Mohammad Najibullah.
Hamid Karzai returned to Afghanistan in early October 1988, late in the war, to assist in the rebel victory in Tarinkot. He assisted in mobilizing the Popalzai and the other Durrani tribes and helped to drive Najibullah's regime from the city. Karzai also helped negotiate the defection of five hundred of Najibullah's soldiers. When Najibullah's pro-Soviet government collapsed in 1992, the Peshawar Accords agreed upon by the Afghan political parties established the Islamic State of Afghanistan and appointed an interim government to be followed by general elections. Karzai accompanied the first mujahideen leaders into Kabul after President Najibullah stepped down in 1992. He served as Deputy Foreign Minister in the government of Burhanuddin Rabbani. Karzai was arrested, however, by Mohammad Fahim (who would later become Karzai's vice president) on charges of spying for Gulbuddin Hekmatyar in what Karzai claimed was an effort to negotiate between Hekmatyar's forces and Rabbani's government. Karzai fled from Kabul in a vehicle provided by Hekmatyar and driven by Gul Rahman.
When the Taliban emerged in the mid-1990s, Karzai initially recognized them as the legitimate government because he thought that they would stop the violence and corruption in the country. He was requested by the Taliban to serve as their ambassador, but refused, telling friends that he felt Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was wrongly using them. Karzai then wanted to represent the Taliban government for the UN, but the Taliban leader did not trust Karzai due to him having many links with westerners. Karzai lived in the Pakistani city of Quetta among many other Afghan refugees, where he worked to reinstate former Afghan king Zahir Shah, meeting the king in Italy several times. He also visited Western embassies (including the U.S. embassy in Islamabad) several times, talking with UN diplomat Norbert Holl, and attempted to gain American support for "modern, educated Afghans" to weaken the Taliban's views. Karzai's father was reportedly annoyed with him for not making clear-cut choices and wanting to be friends with everyone.
In July 1999, Karzai's father, Abdul Ahad Karzai, was shot dead early in the morning while returning home from a mosque in Quetta. Reports suggest that the Taliban carried out the assassination. Following this incident, Karzai took over as khan of the tribe and decided to work closely with the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, which was led by Ahmad Shah Massoud.
In 2000 and 2001, he travelled to Europe and the United States to help gather support for the anti-Taliban movement. "Massoud and Karzai warned the United States that the Taliban were connected with al Qaeda and that there was a plot for an imminent attack on the United States, but their warnings went unheeded. On September 9, 2001, two days before the September 11 attacks in the US, Massoud was assassinated by al Qaeda agents in a suicide bombing." As the U.S. Armed Forces were preparing for a confrontation with the Taliban in September 2001, Karzai began urging NATO states to purge his country of al-Qaeda. He said in a BBC interview, "These Arabs, together with their foreign supporters and the Taliban, destroyed miles and miles of homes and orchards and vineyards ... They have killed Afghans. They have trained their guns on Afghan lives ... We want them out."
President and chairman of a transitional administration
Karzai had been a US CIA contact, and was well regarded by the CIA. After the 7 October 2001 launch of Operation Enduring Freedom, the United Front (Northern Alliance) worked with teams of U.S. special forces and together they overthrew the Taliban regime and mustered support for a new government in Afghanistan. Karzai and his group were in Quetta, where they began a covert operation. Later, many would claim that at this moment the US decided that Karzai should be the next leader of Afghanistan. Before entering Afghanistan, he warned his fighters.