What is Hamid Karzai's Net Worth?
Hamid Karzai is an Afghan politician who has a net worth of $200 thousand. Hamid Karzai served as President of Afghanistan from July 13, 2002, until September 29, 2014.
According to his official declaration of assets in 2010, at that time Hamid did not own any land or property, had less than $20,000 in bank accounts, and earned around $525 per week in salary. The height of Karzai's political career came in 2001 after the dissipation of the Taliban regime. He won 21 out of 34 provinces during the 2004 presidential election and was the first political leader in Afghanistan to be elected by democratic practices. Hamid suffered a great amount of criticism due to the war that began in 2001 and lasted until 2021. Events such as simultaneous anti-American and anti-Karzai riots took place in response to the war and the amount of civilian casualties. He was often blamed for the amount of damage caused by the presence of the Taliban. Despite the discontent among the public, Karzai was re-elected as president in 2009. Hamid previously served as Deputy Foreign Minister and Chairman of the Afghan Interim Administration.
Early Life
Hamid Karzai was born on December 24, 1957, in Karz, Kingdom of Afghanistan. Hamid grew up with seven brothers and one sister, and his brother Ahmed Wali Karzai was assassinated in 2011. In the '60s, his father, Abdul Ahad Karzai (who was murdered in 1999), was the Deputy Speaker of the Afghan Parliament. Karzai is a descendant of the Pashtun and Popalzai tribes. He attended Kandahar's Mahmood Hotaki Primary School and Kabul's Sayed Jamaluddin Afghani School and Habibia High School. After graduating in 1976, he spent time in India as an exchange student and enrolled at Himachal Pradesh University to pursue a master's degree in political science and international relations, which he earned in 1983. Hamid then relocated to Pakistan, where he took a job as a fundraiser for anti-communist Afghan rebels during the Soviet–Afghan War. In 1988, he returned to Afghanistan to help with the rebel victory in Tarinkot, and he was involved in mobilizing Durrani tribes and driving the regime of Soviet-backed leader Mohammad Najibullah from Tarinkot.
In 1992, Najibullah's government collapsed, and the Islamic State of Afghanistan was established. Karzai became President Burhanuddin Rabbani's Deputy Foreign Minister, but he was arrested after he was accused of spying for Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and subsequently fled Kabul. Mohammad Fahim, the man who arrested him, later became Hamid's Vice President. The Taliban rose to power in the mid-1990s, and it was reported that they were responsible for the murder of Hamid's father. Karzai and Ahmad Shah Massoud traveled to the U.S. and Europe in the early 2000s to drum up support for the anti-Taliban movement, warning them that "the Taliban were connected with al Qaeda and that there was a plot for an imminent attack on the United States, but their warnings went unheeded." On September 9, 2001, Massoud was assassinated by members of al Qaeda.
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Career
Karzai was a CIA contact, and when Operation Enduring Freedom launched in October 2001, he was part of a covert operation in Quetta and worked with the U.S. to overthrow the Taliban. Hamid was nearly killed in an attack by the Tailban, and U.S. special forces flew him out of the country for his safety. At a meeting of political leaders in December 2001, the Interim Administration was formed, and Karzai was appointed Chairman of a governing committee with 29 members. On June 13, 2002, he was appointed Interim President of the Afghan Transitional Administration, and in October 2004, he was elected President of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan with 55.4% of the vote.
After Hamid took office, Afghanistan's economy and government revenue grew, and he was re-elected in 2009 amongst reports of electoral fraud and ballot stuffing. Two months after the election, Karzai agreed to a second round run-off vote, but his opponent, Abdullah Abdullah, withdrew, and the vote was cancelled. During his presidency, Karzai had a strong relationship with NATO countries, particularly the U.S., but those relationships eventually became strained due to Hamid criticizing the U.S. military over civilian casualties. Several failed assassination attempts against Karzai occurred during his presidency, and he finished his second term in September 2014. In 2021, the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan fell to the Taliban, and Hamid and High Council for National Reconciliation chairman Abdullah Abdullah met with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the leader of the Hezb-e-Islami party, to talk about forming an interim government with the Taliban.
Personal Life
Hamid married gynecologist Zeenat Quraishi in 1999. They have three children, son Mirwais (born 2007) and daughters Malalai (born 2012) and Howsi (born 2014) as well as a third daughter who was born in 2016 when Karzai was 58 years old.
Controversies
In 2011, Karzai pardoned numerous would-be child suicide bombers who went on to be arrested for trying to commit suicide bombings a few months later. Hamid has been accused of electoral fraud, corruption, and being involved in the drug trade. In 2009, he signed a Shia Personal Status Law stating that "Shia women are required to sexually submit to their husband's demands and are expected to have intercourse with their husband at least once every four days except in case of illness." In 2013, an article in "The New York Times" revealed that beginning in 2002, Hamid's presidential office had received "tens of millions of dollars" in "ghost money" from the C.I.A. that was meant to buy influence for the agency. The publication quoted an unnamed U.S. official who stated that "the biggest source of corruption in Afghanistan was the United States." In 2017, Karzai accused the U.S. of colluding with ISIS in Afghanistan and said that the Trump administration used ISIS as an excuse to attack the country using the "Mother of all Bombs" (GBU-43).
Awards and Honors
In 2002, Karzai received a commemorative medallion of the 9/11 terrorist attacks from the U.S. House of Representatives. Later that year, the American Academy of Achievement honored him with its Golden Plate Award, and in 2003, Queen Elizabeth II appointed him an Honorary Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George. In July 2004, Hamid traveled to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to accept the Philadelphia Liberty Medal, and while accepting the award, he stated, "Where Liberty dies, evil grows. We Afghans have learned from our historical experiences that liberty does not come easily. We profoundly appreciate the value of liberty…for we have paid for it with our lives. And we will defend liberty with our lives." Karzai has received honorary doctorates from Himachal Pradesh University (literature), Boston University (law), Georgetown University (law), Nippon Sport Science University, and Lovely Professional University, and the University of Nebraska — Omaha's Center for Afghan Studies presented him with an honorary degree.
