A
U.S. citizen since 1987, Ali Ahmad Jalali left his job as a broadcaster for
VOA in February 2002 to become the Interior Minister of Afghanistan.
Prior to joining the Afghan government, Jalali lived with his family in
suburban Maryland. His family remains there. He has a son, 33, and a
daughter, 30.
Jalali, a former employee of the U.S. government, is a longtime student of
military organization. He was for several years a top military planner
with the Afghan resistance against the Soviets.
He has written extensively about the Afghan military for scholarly journals
and the mass media, in addition to reporting on Afghanistan and Central Asia
for VOA for almost two decades.
Jalali wrote an influential critique in the spring of 2002 of the U.S.
military role in Afghanistan, arguing that the way the United States used
local chieftains in the war on terrorism "enhanced the power of the warlords
and encouraged them to defy the central authorities." He later softened his
criticism but pointed out that local militias still play a significant role
in working with the U.S. military.
Jalali left Karzai's cabinet on 27 Sep, 2005. Many speculations have
been made about his retirement from Karzai but nothing has officially been
confirmed as the real reason for his leaving his post. He told Afghan
television on Tuesday there were "various reasons" for his resignation,
primarily a desire for the "more relaxed" life as an academic.
"This is something I've worked on all my life," he told private Tolo
network. An Interior Ministry statement quoted him as denying conflicts with
Karzai and praising the president.
But Jalali had expressed frustration about the alleged involvement of
influential people in the drugs trade, even as the government has stepped up
a campaign over the past year to crack down on the world's largest narcotics
industry.
According to many Afghan political analysts, Jalali was an asset to war-torn Afghanistan and a very prominent figure on the Afghan political stage. His seperation from government is seen, by many, as a backslash for the president Karzai.
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The End. Oct 16 2005