Hamdullah Mohib

Hamdullah Mohib (Pashto/Dari: حمدالله محب; born 1983) is an Afghan politician who is serving as the National Security Adviser of Afghanistan. He served as the Afghan ambassador to the United States from 2015 until August 2018.

Hamdullah Mohib
National Security Adviser of Afghanistan
Incumbent
Assumed office 25 August 2018
President	Ashraf Ghani
Preceded by	Mohammad Haneef Atmar
Ambassador of Afghanistan to the United States
In office 1 September 2015 – 25 August 2018
President	Ashraf Ghani
Preceded by	Eklil Ahmad Hakimi
Succeeded by	Roya Rahmani
Personal details
Born	1983 (age 37–38) Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan
Spouse(s)	Lael Adams ​ (m. 2011)​
Children	2
Alma mater	Brunel University London

Early life

Hamdullah Mohib was born in a small village north of Jalalabad in 1983.[1] He was the youngest of eleven children.[1][2] Mohib's father worked in Kabul as a court clerk.[1]

Mohib's family fled Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion, becoming Afghan refugees. The family returned home after the end of the Soviet invasion, but fled once more to Pakistan after a renewed civil war broke out.[1]

Education and early career

When Mohib was sixteen years old, his family sent him to London. He attended community college and then Brunel University, earning a degree in computer systems engineering,[1] with honors.[3] Mohib acquired British citizenship.[1]

After seven years in the UK, Mohib returned to Afghanistan,[1] as director of information technology at the American University of Afghanistan.[4] During the 2009 Afghan presidential election, Mohib worked on the campaign of Afghan Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani, who came in fourth place, losing to incumbent President Hamid Karzai.[1]

Mohib then returned to the UK to study for his Ph.D. in Electronic and Computer Engineering,[1] at Brunel University.[3] He received his degree in 2014.[1]

Career

Ghani deputy chief of staff and Afghan ambassador to the United States

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, Ghani was appointed Afghan ambassador to the United States. Mohib 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.[5]

Mohib formally presented his credentials as Afghan Ambassador to the United States to U.S. President Barack Obama in September 2015.[1]

As Ambassador, Mohib emphasized the need to strengthen the U.S.-Afghan partnership on shared areas of interest, including economic development, anti-corruption efforts, and counterterrorism.[6]

National security adviser

In August 2018, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani appointed Mohib to the post of national security adviser after Mohammad Hanif Atmar resigned from that post. At the same time, Ghani declined to accept offers to 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.[7]

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,[8] a reversal of the prior longstanding U.S. policy of refusing to negotiate with the Taliban without the participation of the Afghan government.[9] (The Taliban views the Kabul government as a "puppet regime"[9] that is illegitimate[10] and therefore refuses to directly negotiate with it.[10]). In a March 2019 conference in Washington, D.C., Mohib accused Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan, of "delegitimizing" the Afghan government in Kabul by excluding it from peace negotiations in Doha, Qatar, in which Khalilzad is the leading U.S. negotiator.[8][9][10][11] 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.[10][11] Reuters reported that 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.[10] Mohib was subsequently shunned by U.S. diplomats who walked out of meetings or refused to attend meetings with Mohib, and the U.S. pressured its allies to do the same.[9] 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.[12]

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.[12][13] Mohib described the precondition as a test of whether the Taliban could actually exert control over its commanders and militant forces.[12]

Personal life

Mohib married Lael Adams (born 1987), an American expert on Afghanistan, in 2011.[1]

Mohib is fluent in English, Pashto, and Dari,[5][14] and is proficient in Urdu[5][14] and Hindi.[5]

Works by Mohib

• How Afghanistan Can Succeed, CNN (September 30, 2015).
• A Grassroots Democracy for Afghanistan, Foreign Policy (June 27, 2011).
• Letter to the Editor: An Ashraf Ghani Government in Afghanistan Would Give Out Jobs Only Based on Merit, Washington Post (September 22, 2016).
• Champions for Change: Afghan Ambassador Hamdullah Mohib, Council on Foreign Relations (July 10, 2018).

See also

• Afghans in the United Kingdom
• Embassy of Afghanistan, Washington, D.C.

References

1. Roxanne Roberts, What does Afghanistan need? Some major rebranding, says its 32-year-old ambassador, Washington Post (April 21, 2016).
2. Gail Scott, American Wife of Afghan Envoy Works to Rebuild War-Torn Nation, Washington Diplomat (July 1, 2016).
3. "Biography ::: Embassy of Afghanistan". www.afghanembassy.us. Retrieved 2017-06-07.
4. Lael Mohib & Hamdullah Mohib, Can Civil Society Save Afghanistan?, Foreign Policy (August 16, 2012).
5. Husain Haqqani, Transcript: The Future of U.S.-Afghanistan Relations: A View from Afghanistan, Hudson Institute (March 13, 2019).
6. Farishta Jalalzai, Afghanistan Envoy In Washington Optimistic Over Continued Support, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (June 27, 2016).
7. Afghan President Declines Resignations of Top Security Officials, Radio Free Afghanistan (August 26, 2018).
8. Pamela Constable, Afghan government, shut out of U.S.-Taliban peace talks, running short on options, Washington Post (March 18, 2019).
9. Rod Nordland & Mujib Mashal, Afghan National Security Chief Is Sidelined in His Own War, New York Times (March 30, 2019).
10. U.S. 'To End Contacts' With Afghan Security Adviser Mohib Following Verbal Attack, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (March 19, 2019).
11. Margaret Brennan, Afghan official accuses top U.S. envoy of undermining Ghani government with colonial intentions, CBS (March 14, 2019).
12. Mujib Mashal, Afghan Government Demands Cease-Fire Before Any Taliban Talks, New York Times (October 29, 2019).
13. Susannah George & Sharif Hassan, U.S. envoy in Afghanistan seeking prisoner exchange to free two hostages held by Taliban, Afghan officials say, Washington Post (November 1, 2019).
14. Faridullah Hussainkhail, Hamdullah Mohib the New Afghan Envoy to US, TOLOnews (September 18, 2015).

External links

• Afghan Ambassador Hamdullah Mohib Discusses Anti-Taliban Efforts in Afghanistan — video of panel discussion at the Hudson Institute, made available by C-SPAN