Hamid Karzai

Hamid Karzai (born 1957) is an Afghan politician who served as the country's interim leader from late 2001 and as President of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan from 2004 to 2014. Born in Karz near Kandahar into the Popalzai clan of the Pashtun Durrani confederation, he is the son of Abdul Ahad Karzai, a senator under King Zahir Shah and a longtime tribal leader.

He studied political science at Himachal Pradesh University in Shimla, India, in the 1970s and was abroad when the Soviet invasion of December 1979 reshaped his country. Through the 1980s he worked in Pakistan with the Afghan resistance, serving as a political adviser to the National Liberation Front led by Sibghatullah Mojaddedi. After the fall of the Najibullah government in 1992 he served briefly as deputy foreign minister, then broke with the Taliban after their 1996 takeover and went into opposition following his father's assassination in Quetta in 1999.

Following the United States-led intervention of late 2001, the Bonn Conference in December selected him to chair the Afghan Interim Authority. He was confirmed as transitional president by the 2002 Loya Jirga, won the country's first direct presidential election in October 2004, and was reelected in the disputed vote of 2009. His two terms saw the drafting of the 2004 constitution, the establishment of national elected institutions, and persistent conflict with insurgent groups and with allied governments over civilian casualties and corruption.

He left office in September 2014 and has continued to comment on Afghan affairs from Kabul.

The given name Hamid is an Arabic name from the root h-m-d, meaning "praiseworthy" or "praising." He has carried it through his country's most turbulent recent decades.