36 Facts About Hamdullah Mohib

Hamdullah Mohib is a Pashtun Afghan politician and former diplomat.

Hamdullah Mohib was then National Security Adviser of Afghanistan from 2018 to 2021, when he fled the country along with Ghani after the 2021 Taliban offensive, just before the collapse of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and the fall of Kabul.

Hamdullah Mohib was born in a small village north of Jalalabad in 1983.

Hamdullah Mohib's family fled Afghanistan during the Soviet war, becoming Afghan refugees.

When Hamdullah Mohib was sixteen years old, his family sent him to London.

Hamdullah Mohib attended community college and then Brunel University, earning a degree in computer systems engineering, with honors.

Hamdullah Mohib's thesis was entitled "End-to-end 3D video communication over heterogeneous networks"; he earned his Ph.

Hamdullah Mohib has been a civil society leader in the Afghan community around the world.

Hamdullah Mohib started the Afghan Students Association of the United Kingdom, Europe's largest Afghan diaspora student organization.

Hamdullah Mohib formed the Afghan Professionals Network and served as its chairman of the Board.

Hamdullah Mohib founded the think tank "Discourse Afghanistan" as part of APN, and he established community service programming to serve special needs orphans in Kabul and to honor Afghan women's achievements.

Hamdullah Mohib was just 32 years old and had no prior diplomatic experience.

Hamdullah Mohib simultaneously served as non-resident ambassador to Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Argentina, and Colombia.

Hamdullah Mohib led Afghanistan's presidential negotiating team for several intergovernmental cooperation agreements and the development of its "Realizing Self-Reliance'" reform strategy.

Hamdullah Mohib formally presented his credentials as Afghan Ambassador to the United States to US President Barack Obama in September 2015.

Hamdullah Mohib was initially criticized for being too young and inexperienced for the job.

Hamdullah Mohib himself was viewed as a possible future Afghan president.

Hamdullah Mohib remains a divisive and polarizing figure in Afghanistan, reviled by some Afghans due to his association with the Soviet invasion, as well as his brutality as head of the Soviet-supported Afghan secret police, but recalled favorably by some Pashtun nationalists who regarded Najibullah as a patriot and promoter of national reconciliation.

Hamdullah Mohib's surprise visit marked the first time a senior member of an Afghan government paid a visit to Najibullah's grave.

Hamdullah Mohib issued orders that bypassed the ordinary chain of command and called unit commanders directly, sometimes to direct specific targets and troop deployments.

Hamdullah Mohib made appointments of district commanders and police chiefs that sometimes went against the desires of local leaders.

Hamdullah Mohib accused Khalilzad, who unsuccessfully ran for president of Afghanistan in 2009 and 2014, of seeking to become a "viceroy" and being motivated by personal political ambition.

Hamdullah Mohib accused Khalilzad of showing disrespect for the Afghan government and Afghan security forces by "colluding and conspiring" with the Taliban enemy.

Hamdullah Mohib was shunned by US diplomats who walked out of meetings or refused to attend meetings with Hamdullah Mohib, and pressured US allies to do the same.

Hamdullah Mohib did later meet with US officials, including on the sidelines of the 2020 Munich Security Conference and in January 2021, when Hamdullah Mohib and Khalilzad met in Kabul.

The Afghan government had said it was willing to directly negotiate with the Taliban without preconditions, but in late October 2019, Hamdullah Mohib announced the Afghan government's reversal of this policy, outlining a new demand that the Taliban agree to a cease-fire before engaging in negotiations.

Hamdullah Mohib described the precondition as a test of whether the Taliban could actually exert control over its commanders and militant forces.

In February 2021, Hamdullah Mohib urged the US not to withdraw its forces from Afghanistan, asserting that two years more were necessary before Afghan security forces could operate without foreign support.

Ghani and Hamdullah Mohib first discussed the possibility of fleeing the country in late July 2021.

That afternoon, Hamdullah Mohib spoke to Khalil Haqqani, a leader of the Taliban's Haqqani network, who asked him to surrender and suggested a meeting.

Hamdullah Mohib called Tom West, Khalilzad's deputy in Doha, to tell him about the conversation with Haqqani.

Hamdullah Mohib gave interviews and participated in public discussions about Afghan government's collapse.

Hamdullah Mohib said that blame for the Afghan government's collapse was widely distributed, and that those with a share of the responsibility included Afghan government officials and Ghani, as well as the Afghan government's allies in the international community.

In 2022, Hamdullah Mohib voluntarily met with the US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction; he acknowledged that the collapsed Afghan government had been rife with corruption, but defended Ghani against claims that the exiled president was personally corrupt.

Hamdullah Mohib is fluent in English, Pashto, and Dari, and is proficient in Urdu and Hindi.

In 2018, Hamdullah Mohib was named one of the World Economic Forum's Young Global Leaders.