Hamid Karzai

President of Afghanistan from 2001 to 2014

  • Fame72.3
  • Momentum8.0
  • Wikipedia57.7K
Claim profile
Source-basedStable
Born 1957 · age 69
PoliticiansPolitician

Verify ownership in 2 minutes. Keeps the profile accurate and discoverable.

  • Wikipedia
    89 languages
    Cross-language footprint
  • Age
    69
    Born 1957
  • Known for
    Return of the Taliban
    2006
Summary
Updated 2026-09-07

He led the US-backed uprising against the Taliban in 2001, became Afghanistan's first elected president, then spent his later years in office calling the Taliban his brothers and warning Washington was fighting the wrong enemy. After the Taliban returned in 2021, Karzai said he'd invited them into Kabul himself.

Biography

About

Born in Kandahar in 1957, Karzai studied in Kabul and India before spending the Soviet–Afghan War raising funds for the mujahideen in Pakistan. After his father's 1999 assassination, he inherited leadership of the Popalzai tribe. When the US invasion began in October 2001, he rallied Pashtun tribes around Kandahar against the Taliban. By December, Afghan leaders in Germany selected him to chair the Interim Administration. The 2002 loya jirga made him interim president; he won the 2004 and 2009 elections outright, serving until 2014. Early on he built alliances across Afghanistan's ethnic divid…

Voice

In their own words

Sourced, dated quotes from Hamid Karzai

Hamid Karzai
said
On the security front the entire Nato exercise was one that caused Afghanistan a lot of suffering, a lot of loss of life, and no gains because the country is not secure.
Quoted on BBC News, "Afghanistan's Hamid Karzai says Nato caused 'great suffering'", (October 7, 2013).
Hamid Karzai
said
Terrorism sees, in the prosperity of the Afghan people, its ultimate defeat.
Address to Canadian Parliament (September 22, 2006)
Hamid Karzai
said
My problem is that I am perhaps too much of a democrat for this time of the country's life. If you need a dictator, then go to the Afghan people. Let them elect a dictator.
Interview with Times magazine (September 10, 2006)
Hamid Karzai
said
Politics without morality is close to sin.
Verbatim Remarks by H.E. Hamid Karzai, President of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan at Osmania University, Hyderabad, India.(April 2006)
Hamid Karzai
said
There is no doubt that people are angry.
[http://www.rferl.org/content/article/1072624.html President Karzai Discusses Worsening Security (March 9, 2006)
By the numbers

Score breakdown

The six component signals behind the Fame score, and their ranks across the leaderboards.

Fame
Stable
72.3
Composite of search demand, mentions, audience & graph footprint.
Score components
Momentum8.0
Historical26.1
Source confidence80.0
Completeness80.0
Global rank
Country rank
Category rank
Receipts

Sources