51 Facts About Amrullah Saleh

Amrullah Saleh was the head of the National Directorate of Security from 2004 to 2010.

In 1997, Amrullah Saleh became the head of the Northern Alliance's liaison office inside the Afghan Embassy in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, handling contacts with international non-governmental organizations and intelligence agencies.

Amrullah Saleh resigned from the NDS in 2010 amidst worsening relations with President Hamid Karzai, founding Basej-e Milli, a pro-democracy and anti-Taliban political party, shortly afterward.

Amrullah Saleh became the acting Minister of Interior Affairs in December 2018, but resigned less than a month later to become Ghani's running mate for first vice president in the 2019 presidential election.

Ghani's ticket won the election, and Amrullah Saleh became first vice president on 25 February 2020.

Amrullah Saleh was a powerful political figure in Afghanistan and has been the target of numerous assassination attempts.

An outspoken critic of the Taliban and Pakistan, Amrullah Saleh has been described as combative and as having a hard-working nature.

Amrullah Saleh fled to Tajikistan shortly after the Taliban seized control of Panjshir on 6 September 2021.

Amrullah Saleh continues to support the NRF from exile, though he has failed to receive any international support for his claim to the presidency.

Amrullah Saleh was born on 15 October 1972 in the Panjshir region of what was then the Kingdom of Afghanistan.

Amrullah Saleh spent much of his childhood in the capital city of Kabul.

Amrullah Saleh was orphaned at the age of 7, resulting in severe financial hardship for his family.

Amrullah Saleh has three daughters and two sons with his wife.

Amrullah Saleh speaks fluent English and has a basic knowledge of Russian.

In 1990, in order to avoid being conscripted into the Soviet-backed Afghan army, Amrullah Saleh joined the opposition mujahideen forces.

Amrullah Saleh received military training in neighboring Pakistan and fought under mujahideen commander Ahmad Shah Massoud.

In 1997, Amrullah Saleh was appointed by Massoud to lead the United Front's international liaison office at the Embassy of Afghanistan in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, where he served as a coordinator for non-governmental organizations and as a liaison partner for foreign intelligence agencies.

In October 1996, Amarullah Amrullah Saleh arranged a meeting between Bharath Raj Muthu Kumar and Ahmad Shah Massoud to arrange equipment and help from New Delhi.

Amrullah Saleh initiated structural reforms and helped rebuild the Afghan intelligence service.

In 2005, Amrullah Saleh engaged several NDS agents infiltrating the Pakistani tribal areas to search for bin Laden and other al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders.

In 2006, Amrullah Saleh was presented with evidence that bin Laden was living in a major settled area of Pakistan just 20 miles from the town of Abbottabad, Pakistan.

Amrullah Saleh shared the intelligence with former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf who angrily brushed off the claim, taking no action.

Amrullah Saleh's family had been attacked by the media unfairly, and the West was criticizing him unfairly.

Amrullah Saleh's people started testing the credentials of the supposed messenger, and judged them to be false, closing the case.

In late 2010, it turned out, that the supposed representative for Mansour was an impostor as Amrullah Saleh had previously warned.

On 6 June 2010, Amrullah Saleh resigned from the NDS while Atmar resigned from his position as interior minister after a militant attack against the national peace jirga, although nobody had been killed or wounded and the attackers had been arrested.

Ambassador Crumpton writes in his recent book that he found Amrullah Saleh to be "young, brilliant, honest, and devoted to a free Afghanistan".

Amrullah Saleh publicly blamed Pakistan for its support to the Taliban and other extremist groups and said talks with the Taliban should take place but not at the cost of democratic structures.

In 2011, Amrullah Saleh launched a peaceful campaign to warn that Hamid Karzai had lost conviction in the fight against the Taliban and was pursuing a compromise that could come at the cost of democracy, stability and human rights, especially women's rights.

Amrullah Saleh criticized Karzai's policy, which he called a "fatal mistake and a recipe for civil war".

Amrullah Saleh consequently founded the Basej-e Milli, known as Afghanistan Green Trend, a political movement which has successfully established itself in Afghanistan.

In December 2011, Amrullah Saleh criticized the corruption of the Karzai government.

Amrullah Saleh especially emphasized the need for fundamental reforms in Afghanistan's Independent Electoral Commission.

Amrullah Saleh has been speaking and writing extensively on these issues in both local and international media.

Amrullah Saleh maintains that the Taliban need to disarm and honor the integrity of the Afghan constitution before they could be considered for any reconciliation process.

Amrullah Saleh warns that ethnic politics and internal fragmentation are serious challenges for Afghanistan.

Amrullah Saleh questioned the honesty of the Taliban's involvement in peace talks.

Amrullah Saleh discusses why the NATO and the US remain unwilling to confront Pakistan because of their own security concerns.

On 9 June 2013, in the 10th annual US-Islamic forum organized in Doha by the Brookings institution in partnership with the state of Qatar, Amrullah Saleh spoke in a plenary session titled "Transitions in Afghanistan and Pakistan".

President Ashraf Ghani appointed Amrullah Saleh to become the new interior minister on 23 December 2018, in a major shake up in the government's security positions.

The New York Times reported that Amrullah Saleh had vowed to minimize the influence of warlords and strongman over the state police in Kabul.

On 19 January 2019, Amrullah Saleh resigned as the Interior Minister to join Ashraf Ghani's election team.

Later on the same day, Amrullah Saleh stated on his Twitter page that he "will never be under one ceiling with Taliban".

Amrullah Saleh was claimed to be forming a resistance force against the Taliban.

On 17 August 2021, Amrullah Saleh proclaimed himself the acting president of Afghanistan, in accordance with articles 60 and 67 of the Constitution of Afghanistan which stipulate that the First Vice President assumes the duties of the President in the absence of the President.

Amrullah Saleh has become a target of assassination a number of times.

Amrullah Saleh lost many colleagues and 2 nephews in the attack.

The attack on Amrullah Saleh was condemned by the international community, including the European Union.

On 9 September 2020, Amrullah Saleh was wounded by a roadside bomb attack in Kabul, in which ten people were killed.

Amrullah Saleh posted a video on Facebook after the explosion with bandages on his left hand and burns to his face.

Amrullah Saleh said he was traveling to his office with his son when the attack took place.