Gulbuddin Hekmatyar

Gulbuddin Hekmatyar joined the Muslim Youth organization as a student in the early 1970s, where his Islamic radicalism unsettled even that group. When the Soviet-Afghan War began in 1979, the CIA funneled money through Pakistani intelligence to his Hezb-e-Islami organization, which became the largest mujahideen force. In the late 1980s he turned the pipeline around: using CIA weapons and cash, he moved into opium trafficking and heroin manufacturing, becoming one of the Middle East's leading suppliers and a diplomatic embarrassment. After Soviet-backed President Najibullah fell in 1992, Hekmatyar refused to join the new Islamic State and instead bombarded Kabul - rocket attacks that killed some 50,000 civilians and for which he bore the most responsibility. He served twice as prime minister in the 1990s amid the chaos, fled to Tehran when the Taliban took over in 1996, then spent years in Pakistan waging a failed insurgency after 2001. A 2016 peace deal brought him home after two decades in exile, and he remains in Kabul today, sidelined after the Taliban's return.