Hamid Karzai - Early Career

Early Career

After obtaining his Master's degree in India he moved to neighboring Pakistan to work as a fundraiser for the anti-communist mujahideen during the 1980s Soviet war in Afghanistan. The Mujahideens were backed by the United States, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Iran, and Karzai was a contractor for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) at the time. While Karzai remained in Pakistan during the Soviet intervention, his siblings emigrated to the United States.

Following the withdrawal of Soviet forces, Hamid Karzai returned to Afghanistan in early October 1988 to assist in the Mujahideen victory in Tarinkot. Hamid Karzai assisted in rallying Polpalzai Durrani tribes to oust the regime from the city as well as helped negotiate the defection of five hundred of Dr. Najib's forces.

When Najibullah's Soviet-backed 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 in 1992 following the Soviet withdrawal. He served as Deputy Foreign Minister in the government of Burhanuddin Rabbani. Karzai was, however, arrested by Mohammad Fahim (Karzai's current Vice President) on charges of spying for Gulbuddin Hekmatyar in what Karzai claimed was an effort to mediate between Hekmatyar's militia and the Islamic State. When he was released 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 a legitimate government because he thought that they would stop the violence and corruption in his country. He was asked by the Taliban to serve as their ambassador but he refused, telling friends that he felt Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was wrongly using them. He lived in Pakistan as among the Afghan refugees, where he worked to reinstate former Afghan King Zahir Shah. On the morning of 14 July 1999, Karzai's father, Abdul Ahad Karzai, was gunned down as he was coming home from a mosque in the city of Quetta. Reports suggest that the Taliban carried out the assassination. Following this incident, Karzai decided to work closely with the United Front (Northern Alliance), which was led by Ahmad Shah Massoud. In 2000 and 2001, he traveled to Europe and the United States to help gather support for the anti-Taliban movement.

As the United States armed forces were preparing for a confrontation with the Taliban in September 2001, Karzai began urging NATO nations to purge his country of Al-Qaeda. He told BBC "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."