Word: sherzai
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...seemed ludicrous at first, the idea of Gul Agha Sherzai running for President of Afghanistan. The journalists who knew him, first as governor of Kandahar, then of Nangahar province, nicknamed him Jabba the Hutt, after the villainous behemoth of the Star Wars movies. It wasn't just his size (he readily admits he is considerably overweight), or his deep, throaty chuckle, that evoked such a comparison. It was more his reputation for ruthlessness as a warlord during the country's civil war in the 1990s. Sherzai's ability to get things done, however, has earned him another nickname from...
...Sherzai has made headlines by suddenly pulling out from the presidential race - a move that says as much about the parlous state of Afghanistan's young democracy as it does about its cynical politics. (See a multimedia look at the war in Afghanistan...
...presidential candidate, Sherzai ticked all the boxes. He is Pashtun, the country's biggest ethnic group; as a tribal chieftain he has the necessary respect to deal with leaders of the Taliban insurgency devastating the south; and he possesses a national reputation garnered from his successful governorship. (Read "Why the Taliban Is Winning the Propaganda...
...Sherzai also got to meet Barack Obama before President Hamid Karzai did. When the then Senator Obama visited Afghanistan last July as part of a congressional delegation, his first stop was the provincial capital of Jalalabad, Sherzai's seat. The visit, arranged by the U.S. State Department, did not appear to have been chosen for any other reason than convenience: Jalalabad is just a half-hour flight from Kabul, and Sherzai's successes in the province were considered emblematic of potential solutions elsewhere in the country. "The Obama visit is what started it all," says Nasir Ahmad, one of Sherzai...
...difficult to identify its senior commanders. The Pentagon doesn't comment on its Guantanamo detainees, but a Taliban source tells TIME that Shahzada convinced his captors he had been picked up by their Afghan allies only because he was Pashtun, a rival ethnic group. Afghan minister Gul Agha Sherzai, who has helped battle the Taliban, insists that if Afghan officials had been allowed to vet Guantanamo captives, Shahzada would never have been freed. "We know all these Taliban faces," he says. Repeated requests for access, he claims, were turned down...