Abdul Ahad Karzai

Who was Abdul Ahad Karzai?

Abdul Ahad Karzai was a politician in Afghanistan, who served as the Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly of Afghanistan under King Zahir Shah in the 1960s. He was the son of Khair Mohammad Khan and father of current Afghan President Hamid Karzai. As head of the Popalzai Pashtun tribe, Abdul Ahad Karzai moved with his family from Kandahar to the capital Kabul upon his election to the Parliament. He criticised the communist government in Afghanistan and was imprisoned for three years, at which point his family's properties were confiscated.

On 14 July 1999, when the Taliban government was in power, Abdul Ahad Karzai was assassinated by two Taliban gunmen on a motorcycle outside a mosque in Quetta, Pakistan. He was 77 years old when he died and his son Hamid Karzai took over the leadership and responsibilities of the Popalzai tribe. The Karzai family were living as Afghan refugees in neighboring Pakistan from where Hamid Karzai organized the tribe's affairs.