Hamdullah Mohib

In 2014, the same year he received his Ph.D., Mohib became an aide to Ghani, who won the 2014 Afghan presidential election. After Ghani assumed office, Mohib became his deputy chief of staff; one year later, Mohib was appointed Afghan ambassador to the United States. He was just 32 years old and had no prior diplomatic experience.[1] Mohib also simultaneously served as non-resident ambassador to Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Argentina, and Colombia.[8]

During his tenure as the Deputy Chief of Staff to President Ghani, where he Coordinated and oversaw the office of the spokesperson, correspondence and diplomatic communications, protocol and petitions, as well as the Presidential Secretariat.[9] While at the Presidential Palace, he was responsible for drafting bilateral and multilateral agreements, coordinating with counterparts from the government, and organizing official presidential visits to many other nations.[9] Mohib led Afghanistan's presidential negotiating team for several intergovernmental cooperation agreements and the development of its "Realizing Self-Reliance'" reform strategy.[10]

Mohib formally presented his credentials as Afghan Ambassador to the United States to U.S. President Barack Obama in September 2015.[1] During Mohib's tenure as Ambassador, he focused on issues such as women's empowerment and political participation in Afghanistan.[11]

In August 2018, Ghani appointed Mohib to the post of national security adviser after Mohammad Hanif Atmar abruptly resigned from that post. At the same time, Ghani declined to accept offers of resignation submitted by Defense Minister Tariq Shah Bahrami, Interior Minister Wais Barmak, and National Directorate of Security chief Mohammed Masoom Stanekzai, over policy differences; Ghani asked the trio to remain in office.[12][13]

Mohib was initially criticized for being too young and inexperienced for the job. As national security advisor, he pushed various tribal, political, and ethnic factions to support a united push for peace, saying that a lack of social cohesion and the many Afghan rivalries impaired national security and the prospect of ending the Taliban insurgency.[13] As one of Ghani's closest aides, Mohib defended Ghani's leadership even as the president's political standing diminished in Kabul and among international allies.[14] Along with Mohammed Masoom Stanekzai, Mohib was the chief negotiator on Ghani's behalf in 2019 and 2020, during the impasse between Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah in the aftermath of the 2019 Afghan presidential election, in which both Ghani and Abdullah claimed victory and took the oath of office, triggering a political crisis. The two rivals signed a power-sharing deal in May 2020.[15] Mohib himself was viewed as a possible future Afghan president.[16]

Over the Eid holidays in May 2020, Mohib visited the gravesite of Mohammad Najibullah in the Melan graveyard in Gardez, eastern province of Paktia. Najibullah was Afghan president from 1986 and 1992; he was the last president of the Soviet-backed Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, but turned to Afghan nationalism in his final years. Najibullah was tortured and killed by the Taliban in 1996. He 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. Mohib's surprise visit marked the first time a senior member of an Afghan government paid a visit to Najibullah's grave. The visit was seen as an attempt to remind Afghans of the brutality of the Taliban while also appealing to Afghan nationalists.[16][17]

As Ghani's national security adviser, Mohib sometimes exercised direct control of military operations despite having no military experience.[18][19] He issued orders that bypassed the ordinary chain of command and called unit commanders directly,[18] sometimes to direct specific targets and troop deployments.[19] Mohib made appointments of district commanders and police chiefs that sometimes went against the desires of local leaders.[19]

Mohib with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at the Presidential Palace in Kabul, March 23, 2020.

Peace talks had been stalled for years due to the Taliban's refusal to speak with the U.S.-backed Afghan government; the Taliban viewed Ghani, and his predecessor Hamid Karzai, as puppets who lacked legitimacy, and insisted on negotiating only with the U.S. government and its NATO allies.[20][21][22] In 2020, President Donald Trump appointed a special envoy, Zalmay Khalilzad, to negotiate directly with the Taliban, which had representatives in Doha, Qatar; the negotiations cut out the Afghan government.[20] As national security adviser, Mohib conveyed the Ghani administration's frustration and anger at the Trump administration's choice to cut out the Afghan government from direct U.S.-Taliban peace negotiations,[23] a reversal of the prior longstanding U.S. policy of refusing to negotiate with the Taliban without the participation of the Afghan government.[21]

In a March 2019 conference in Washington, D.C., Mohib accused the U.S. "delegitimizing" the Afghan government in Kabul by excluding it from the peace talks in Doha, in which Khalilzad was the leading U.S. negotiator.[23][21][22][24] 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.[22][24] Mohib accused Khalilzad of showing disrespect for the Afghan government and Afghan security forces by "colluding and conspiring" with the Taliban enemy.[25] The day following Mohib's remarks, U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs David Hale informed President Ghani in a phone call that the U.S. government would cut ties with Mohib, and that he would no longer be officially received in Washington or by U.S. civilian and military officials.[22] Mohib was subsequently shunned by U.S. diplomats who walked out of meetings or refused to attend meetings with Mohib, and pressured U.S. allies to do the same.[21] In addition to angering the U.S., Mohib's comments were criticized by some of the Ghani administration's political rivals, such as Haneef Atmar and Shaida Mohammad Abdali.[26] Others, such as MP Zakaria Zakaria, said that Mohib's comments were truthful and honest. The former U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Daniel Feldman said that the issue should not negatively affect U.S.-Afghan relations.[26] Mohib did later meet with U.S. officials, including on the sidelines of the 2020 Munich Security Conference[27] and in January 2021, when Mohib and Khalilzad met in Kabul.[28]

The Afghan government had said it was willing to directly negotiate with the Taliban without preconditions, but in late October 2019, 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.[29][30] Mohib described the precondition as a test of whether the Taliban could actually exert control over its commanders and militant forces.[29]

The Doha talks between the U.S. and the Taliban lasted nearly a year before abruptly collapsing in September 2019 following a tweet from Trump.[29] Negotiations resumed, however, and in 2020, the Trump administration and the Taliban signed the Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan. In the agreement, the Taliban agreed to "start intra-Afghan negotiations" and the U.S. pledged to withdraw military combat forces by May 2021. The Taliban did not honor its commitments. The U.S. pressured Ghani to negotiate with the Taliban, viewing the Afghan president as obstreperous, and Ghani was unwilling to give up power.[20] The U.S.-Taliban agreement includes several secret written annexes and verbal agreements, including a contentious provision prohibiting the U.S. from assisting Afghan troops in "offensive" operations against the Taliban. The U.S. and the Taliban disagreed about the scope of this provision. When the Taliban failed to keep promises made in the Doha Agreement, the Trump administration ignored the violations. Mohib said that, Ghani felt lied to. He was undermined."[20]

In February 2021, Mohib urged the U.S. not to withdraw its forces from Afghanistan, asserting that two years more were necessary before Afghan secuity forces could operate without foreign support. Mohib said that: "We expect that in the next couple of years we will be fully self-reliant, capable of independently carrying out our security responsibilities, even if there was no peace with the Taliban."[31]

In the summer of 2021, the Taliban seized control of much of the country, and the new U.S. Biden administration decided to continue with the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. Ghazni fell on August 12, and Kandahar and Herat the following day. Under siege, Dostum fled to Uzbekistan, as did Ata Mohammad Noor, a powerful and independent leader in the north. The U.S. government arranged a major evacuation effort from Hamid Karzai International Airport.[32][20] Ghani and Mohib first discussed the possibility of fleeing the country in late July 2021.[20] On August 14, more provinces fell to the Taliban.[32] The same day, after learning that one of his colleagues at the Presidential Palace was on a list of "at-risk" Afghans approved by the U.S. Embassy for evacuation in the event, Mohib asked the U.S. State Department to include him and Ghani in the U.S. evacuation plan "in case the political settlement doesn't work."[20] Fearing that the U.S. would not rescue Ghani and his top aides, Mohib obtained assurances from a United Arab Emirates official who told him that the UAE would send an executive jet to Kabul on August 16 to evacuate Ghani and his aides.[20]

On August 15, as Taliban forces assembled outside Kabil, Mohib learned from the Signal group chat with the Afghan government's top intelligence and security officials that Talibs were arriving in Kabul, and policemen, soldiers, and guards in Kabul were abandoning their uniforms and posts.[20] That morning, Ross Wilson, the U.S. chargé d'affaires in Kabul, concluded from Resolute Support surveillance blimp data and other sources that the Kabul Green Zone was no longer secure. Washington ordered all U.S. personnel at embassy to immediately evacuate to Kabul's airport. Fearing a leak to the Taliban or the Islamic State, Wilson did not tell Ghani about the evacuation or the U.S. determination that the Green Zone was no longer secure.[20] That afternoon, Mohib spoke to Khalil Haqqani, a leader of the Taliban's Haqqani network, who asked him to surrender and suggested a meeting.[20] Mohib called Tom West, Khalilzad's deputy in Doha, to tell him about the conversation with Haqqani. West advised him that the suggestion to meet might be an attempt to lure Mohib into a trap.[20] That afternoon, as Kabul collapsed, Ghani, his wife Rula Ghani, Mohib, and nine other top officials fled the country, along with did Ghani's security detail. Mohib was the one who said: "It's time, Mr. President. We have to leave." The group fled to Uzbekistan.[32][33][20]

After fleeing Afghanistan, Mohib traveled to the UAE. He gave interviews and participated in public discussions about Afghan government's collapse.[34][35] 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.[34] Mohib rejected President Joe Biden's assessment that "Afghanistan political leaders gave up and fled the country" and that Afghans lacked the "will to fight" for their own future; he also criticized the Trump administration for cutting the Afghan government out of the U.S.-Taliban talks (arguing that this key decision led to the ultimate collapse of the Afghan government), for failing to provide close air support to the Afghan National Army in its fight against the Taliban, and for a rapid drawdown of U.S. troops.[34] In 2022, Mohib voluntarily met with the U.S. 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.[36]

Taliban deputy spokesman Ahmadullah Wasiq claimed in a November 2021 tweet that the UAE had banned on Ghani officials living in exile in the Emirates, including Mohib, Atta Muhammad Nur, and Ghani himself, from engaging in Afghan politics.[37] The following month, Mohib confirmed in a Face the Nation interview that while being hosted by the government of the United Arab Emirates, he and other Ghani officials in exile respected the UAE's policy that "they don't want any political activity."[34]