Minister Ali Ahmad Jalali, the former Interior Minister of Afghanistan (2003-2005), is a Distinguished Professor in the Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies and a Distinguished Visiting Fellow in the Institute for National Strategic Studies in Washington, DC.  As Interior Minister, Minister Jalili was responsible for disarming militias, and creating 50,000 Afghan National Police and 12,000 Border Police.  The ministry was also tasked with developing strategies to counter narcotics trafficking, terrorism, and other criminal activities.  He is published in three languages (English, Pashto, and Dari/Farsi), is regularly asked to comment in the international media, and has taught at the U.S. National Defense University, U.S. Army War College, U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, and the British Army Staff College.

 

Mr. Wailiullah Rahmani is the Founder and Chief Executive of Kabul Center for Strategic Studies.  As a terrorism analyst based in Kabul, he has written for a variety of international publications on terrorism and other issues facing Afghanistan.  He was an analyst for the Jamestown Foundation, an independent, non-partisan think tank based in Washington that focuses on global security threats.

Minister Abdullah  Abdullah was the Foreign Minister of Afghanistan from 2001-2006.  During the Taliban era, he was a resistance leader in the Afghan United Front, the organization headed by Ahmad Shah Massoud until his assassination September 9, 2001 by suicide bombers posing as journalists believed to be linked to Al Qaeda.  During the Soviet War in Afghanistan, Minister  Abdullah was trained to be a physician and worked as an opthamologist both in Afghanistan and the Afghan refugee camps in Pakistan. 

Professor M. Nazif Shahrani is a Professor of Anthropology and Central Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at Indiana University. Professor Shahrani left Afghanistan while he was a student at Kabul University to complete his studies in the United States.   Professor Shahrani is the author of two books on the Kirghis and Wakhi of Afghanistan (2002 and 1979); and a co-editor of a third, Revolutions and Rebellions in Afghanistan (1984).  He also studies and has written about the human consequences of “low-intensity” wars; how Islam has impacted social planning in Afghanistan; the politicization of ethnic minorities; multi-ethnic state fragmentation; the impact of international assistance, the failure of the Afghan Mujahideen to build a functioning state after the Soviet withdrawal; Central Asian Muslims under the U.S.S.R. and in the post-Soviet phase too.

Professor Hamidullah Farooqi is on the Economics Faculty of Kabul University and is the elected CEO of Afghanistan’s International Chamber of Commerce. He also serves on the Supervisory Board of Bank Millie Afghan, the Afghanistan Traders and Industrialists Center, and is the   president and CEO of Hamed-Lais Construction Company LLC in Kabul.  He writes scientific and policy papers on various economic issues.   He received his Masters in Economics from Queens College, New York.

Mr. Abdul Ghafoor Rahmani (pictured above left) is the owner of Nawid Rahmani Brothers Trading Company and  Faiz Mominzadeh Trading Ltd, and is the CEO of Dawi Oil.   He has owned and operated trading companies in Dubai, Iran, and Pakistan, including the Al Fajar Al Moshriq, Al Jemi and Al Egrathu Masiea trading companies, with operations in Dubai, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Iran, and Russia. A generous benefactor, Mr. Rahmani is the cofounder of Kabul Center for Strategic Studies, and thanks to Mr. Rahmani, the Center has an initial operating budget.