Juma Khan Hamdard

291
Juma Khan Hamdard bigraphy, stories - Governor of Paktia, Afghanistan

Juma Khan Hamdard : biography

1954 –

Juma Khan Hamdard () is the current governor of Paktia Province, Afghanistan. He formerly served as governor of Baghlan and later Jowzjan.

Biography

Juma Khan Hamdard, an ethnic Pashtun of the Wardak tribe from Mazari Sharif, was born in 1954 in Balkh Province in northern Afghanistan.. Naval Postgraduate School, Program for Culture & Conflict Studies A popular leader of the Pashtun community of Balkh and Mazar-i-Sharif, Hamdard was a member of Hezbi Islami and fought against the Soviets under the leadership of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. In 1994, he allied with Abdul Rashid Dostum, an ethnic Uzbek, against the Talibans. In 1997, he defected to the Taliban’s side and helped them defeat Dostum’s forces in 1997/98 in an extremely bloody campaign.

Following the US-led coalition’s invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, Hamdard resumed a weak alliance with Dostum’s forces, but on the eve of the presidential election in October 2004, he pledged support to Karzai. He was then made governor of the northern province of Baghlan, and later Jowzjan, Dostum’s power base in the ethnic Uzbek heartland. In May 2007 forces under his command shot at demonstrators asking his dismissal in the town of Sheberghan, killing 13 and injuring more than 30.. Asia Times, May 30, 2007 On December 17, 2007 he was appointed governor of the eastern Paktia Province, replacing Rahmatullah Rahmat. Hamdard is also one of President Karzai’s tribal affairs advisors.