Ali Ahmad Jalal is an Afghan-American politician, diplomat, and former military personnel. In addition to serving as Afghanistan’s interior minister, Mr. Jalal also served as a distinguished professor at the Middle East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies (NESA) at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C. in August 2021, after his name appeared in the media as the most likely head of the interim administration in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.
Contents
Wiki/Biography
Ali Ahmad Jalal was born in 1940 (age 81; as of 2021) in Kabul, Afghanistan. Growing up in Kabul, Mr. Jalali earned a bachelor’s degree in military operational arts and sciences from the Afghanistan Military University in 1961. In 1966 he received an MA in Military Science from the Staff College in Kabul and in 1967 he received a PSC from the British Staff College.
Physical appearance
Height (approx): 5′ 10″
Hair color: salt and pepper
Eye: Color: dark brown
family
parents and siblings
Ali Ahmad Jalal’s late father, G. Jelani Jalal, was a professor.
wife and children
Married to Homaira Jalali, has a son Wais Jalali (Engineer) and a daughter Dr. Bahar Jalali. He lives with his family in suburban Maryland.
Ali Ahmad Jalal son of Wais Jalal
Ali Ahmad Jalal daughter of Dr. Bahar Jalal
Nationality/Citizenship
Ali Ahmad Jalal has been a US citizen since 1987.
Career
Military
Ali Ahmad Jalal served in the Afghan National Army as a colonel. After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s, he played a crucial role as the chief military planner in the Afghan resistance. His military service spanned the years 1961-1981, during which he served in command, staff, and educational posts, ending with the rank of colonel.
Journalist
From August 1982 to January 2003, Mr. Jalal worked extensively as a writer, broadcaster and head of Pashto, Dari and Persian services at VOA in Washington, DC. He was reportedly chosen by the United States to revamp Afghanistan’s perennially weak governments. While working as a journalist in the United States, Mr. Jalal extensively covered the war in Afghanistan from 1982 to 1993. From 1993 to 2000, he also covered the war in former Soviet Central Asia.
politics
In January 2003, he returned to Afghanistan, replacing Taj Mohammad Wardak as Afghanistan’s Minister of the Interior, a position he held from 28 January 2003 to 27 September 2005 in the government of Ashraf Ghani. By sending him home, the US reportedly strategically wanted to avoid inciting Afghan nationalism, which had weakened previous foreign invasions, both British and Soviet, by appointing Afghan expatriates to key positions. On his return, Mr. Jalali said:
I came here because I thought I could make a difference.”
While serving as Interior Minister, Mr. Jalali established the Afghan National Police (ANP) and Border Police, 50,000 and 12,000-strong forces respectively, to fight organized crime and smugglers with an effective program of narcotics, counter-terrorism and criminal investigations. In 2003, as Minister of Home Affairs, he led a nationwide campaign to protect the Constituent Assembly (Loya Jirga) as well as the National Voter Registration Center and the 2004 presidential and 2005 parliamentary elections. At the end of 2005, Ali Ahmad Jalali announced his resignation from the position of Minister of Internal Affairs for personal reasons. On September 27, 2005, TV Tolo quoted Jalal’s words –
I will no longer work as the Minister of Internal Affairs. There may or may not be reasons for this, but one of the main reasons is that I want to update my academic studies.”
However, most political analysts believe that Jalal resigned due to conflicts with Hamid Karzai over the appointment of governors and other high-ranking officials in the Ministry of Interior, as well as over drug-related issues. According to diplomatic sources, Ali Ahmad Jalal is the most likely candidate to become president of Afghanistan’s interim government after the Taliban takeover of Kabul on August 15, 2021, after which President Ashraf Ghani fled the country, reportedly to Tajikistan, as the insurgent group mobbed the presidential palace.
diplomatic and academic
Since October 2005, Mr. Jalali has served as Distinguished Professor at the Middle East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies (NESA) at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C. During the Soviet invasion in the 1980s, he also served as a professor at the State Department’s Diplomacy Institute and as the Senior Advisor to Afghanistan in the Afghan Reserve.
Ali Ahmad Jalal delivers a lecture at the Institute of Cultural Diplomacy
Ali Ahmad Jalal is a published author in three languages, English, Pashto, and Dari, and has published his work in the United States, Great Britain, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran. He has written many books and articles on various issues in Afghanistan, Iran and Central Asia, including politics, military and security, as well as issues related to Islamic movements in the region. Jalali has written extensively on Afghan affairs, including The Other Side of the Mountain; The book was an analytical overview of the Mujahideen’s war against Soviet troops in Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989. In the spring of 2002, Jalali wrote an influential critique of the US military’s role in Afghanistan, in which he pointed out how the United States was using local commanders in the war on terrorism. His book Afghanistan: A Military History from the Ancient Empires to the Great Game is also considered a masterpiece on the history of Afghanistan.
Between 2001 and 2010, several of his articles were published by Parameters, the US Army’s senior professional journal. Many leading American and European newspapers have also published Jalal’s articles and commentaries, including The Washington Post, The Christian Science Monitor, and The New York Times.
ᐯildo
- 1961: Afghan Army Decoration Barial 3-Bronze
- 1964: Afghan Army Decoration Baryal 2-Silver
- 1967: Afghan Army Wartia (Meritorious Service) Medal – Bronze
- 1968: Afghan Army Decoration Baryal 1-Gold
- 1977: Afghan Army Wartia (Meritorious Service) Medal – Silver
- 1984-1990: Four American Voices Sustained Outstanding Performance Awards
- 1985-1992: Eleven VOA Awards of Excellence in Programming
- 1997: US Federal Service 15, 20 and 25 Year Pins (also 2003 and 2011)
- 2003: US Government Career Achievement Award
- 2004: Afghanistan Distinguished Service Medal, Constitutional Loya Jirga
- 2005: Afghanistan’s highest state medal “Wazir Akbar Khan”
Facts/Trivia
- In 2009, an article by Ahmad Majidiyar of the American Enterprise Institute named Jalal as one of the likely candidates for the Afghan presidential election; However, as a US citizen, he was barred from running for office because Chapter Three, Article Sixty-Two of the Afghan Constitution states that only an Afghan citizen can run for president in Afghanistan; The country has not signed a dual citizenship agreement.
- Marquis Who’s Who named Ali Ahmad Jalal as administrator of the federal agency.
- As a colonel in the Afghan army, Mr. Jalal oversaw the resistance movement in Pakistan during the Soviet invasion in the 1980s.
- He is a frequent commentator on regional security and development issues in Afghanistan for major US television networks, including CNN, ABC, NBC, MSNBC, FOX News, PBS, NPR, as well as Australian National Television (ABC) and Canada’s CBC.
- While working as a journalist in the United States, he traveled extensively to Iran and Central Asia.
- Mr. Jalal is fluent in Pashto, Dari/Persian, Arabic, Turkish, French and Russian.
Categories: Politics
Source: dienchau2.edu.vn
