1. Pir Sayyid Ahmed Gailani, was the leader of the Qadiriyyah Sufi order in Afghanistan, and the founder of the National Islamic Front of Afghanistan, a party that was associated with the Mujahideen who led the war against the Soviet Union in the 1980s.
Sayyid Ahmed Gailani was born in 1932 in Surkh-Rod District, Nangarhar Province.
Ahmed Gailani's family are descended from Abdul-Qadir Gilani, the founder of the Qadiriyyah Sufi order.
Ahmed Gailani's father, Sayyid Hasan Gailani, was born in Baghdad before moving to Afghanistan in 1905 in order to establish the Qadiriyyah order in that country.
Ahmed Gailani was born in the Surkh-Rod District of Nangarhar Province of Afghanistan, where he remains a significant figure.
Ahmed Gailani studied at Abu Hanifa College in Kabul, before graduating at the Faculty of Theology of Kabul University in 1960.
In 1979, after the communist PDPA had come to power, Pir Ahmed Gailani fled to Pakistan where he created the National Islamic Front of Afghanistan, a moderate royalist faction.
Ahmed Gailani was distinct from the six other mujahideen leaders in favoring Western dress and being fluent in English.
Ahmed Gailani was however criticized for weak leadership and ineffectiveness.
Ahmed Gailani's constituency was drawn from the following of the Qadiryyah, and his group functioned like a Sufi order, greatly hampering its efficiency as a political and military organisation.
Outside of the ISI, Ahmed Gailani had few links with foreign patrons, but he did receive some support from American conservative lobbying groups such as the Committee for a Free Afghanistan, an emanation of the Heritage Foundation, and Freedom House.
Ahmed Gailani was associated with Lord Bethell of the London-based Radio Free Kabul.
In October 2001, Pir Ahmed Gailani headed a group of Afghan leaders, the Assembly for Peace and National Unity of Afghanistan, which attempted to win over moderate elements in the Taliban.