Afghan Biographies
Khalid, Asadullah
Name | Khalid, Asadullah |
Ethnic backgr. | Pashtun |
Date of birth | 1969 |
Function/Grade | Ex Minister |
History and Biodata |
2. Previous Functions:
3. Biodata Asadullah Khalid:
A source in the presidential palace says that President Karzai’s selection of Khalid as Minister of Frontier and Tribal Areas has given him the opportunity to maintain his power in the southern and eastern provinces and to continue abusing that power. A source says that Khalid is the most crucial member of a narcotics producing and smuggling syndicate. Various sources say one of Gul Agha Shirzai ’s (present governor of Nangarhar) tasks is to collect a toll from narcotics caravans for Asadullah Khalid. Canadian Government documents detailing the accusations were heavily censored by the government which, claiming national security, blacked out the references to “the governor.”
Khalid is an influential confidant of Karzai, who delegated to him significant power over security in southern Afghanistan after Ahmed Wali Karzai, the president’s brother, was assassinated 2011. Lately Khalid, who also serves as minister of tribal and border affairs, has been leading the government’s efforts to support uprisings in Ghazni Province against the Taliban.(20120829)
Human Rights Watch claimed the Afghan government should drop reported plans to appoint Assadullah Khalid who is linked to torture as head of the National Directorate of Security (NDS). Numerous and credible reports allege that Asadullah Khalid, while governor of Kandahar province and in other posts, commanded forces that committed grave human rights violations.(20120831) "There are also credible allegations that Khalid was involved in the bombing of a vehicle that killed five UN workers in Kandahar in April 2007," Amnesty International said in a statement released in September· 2012.
However a former senior government official who’s close to Karzai said that Khalid’s appointment has been confirmed.(20120831) Asadullah Khalid suffered serious injuries on the lower part of his body when a bomb exploded on Thursday (20121206) afternoon in the intelligence chief's guest house in Taimani, Street 8, Kabul, where he was receiving a visitor. Reports suggested it was a suicide attacker posing as a peace envoy. He detonated explosives that he had hidden in his body. A spokesman for the National Directorate of Security, Shafiqullah Tahiri, confirmed that the attacker had hidden the bomb inside his rectum. The Afghan intelligence agency said earlier that the explosives were hidden in the bomber's underwear. Five had been killed and eight more injured in the attack among them some National Directorate of Security (NDS) officials. The house is used for private meetings that Khalid doesn't want to hold at the official compound of the National Directorate of Intelligence. Khalid had been wounded in the chest and the abdomen, and had arrived unconscious at a medical facility run by the intelligence service NDS. Khalid was expected to recover, but was airlifted by Helicopter to Baghram Airbase and from there abroad to the USA via Landstuhl US Military Hospital in Germany for further treatment at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, USA.(20121206) Khalid had serious abdominal injuries that would require multiple operations and that it was not yet clear if or when he would be able to return to work.(20121210). In Khalid’s absence, the intelligence agency is being run by one of his deputies, Gen. Hisaamuddin Khan. (20121213)
State Department officials said Khalid was not granted a visa (because of alleged human rights violations) but rather admitted under the Department of Homeland Security’s “parole” process, which grants temporary stays for foreign nationals under emergency conditions.(20130109) For the time being Khalid can only walk with the assistance of a four-wheeled contraption. (20130214). Asadullah Khalid returned back to Afghanistan on 20130402.
When he recently left Kabul for more surgery in Washington, D.C., intelligence chief Asadullah Khalid went so quietly hardly anyone in the government knew he was gone. But a U.S. official, who declined to be further identified because of the sensitivity of the issue, said Khalid had returned to the United States for further treatment of his wounds after his condition deteriorated. (20130508).
Khalid speaks Pashtu, Dari and English. |
Last Modified | 2022-03-16 |
Established | 2009-10-09 |