Hamdullah Mohib (Pashto/; born 1983) is a Pashtun Afghan politician and former diplomat.
Educated in England, Mohib was deputy chief of staff to Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and simultaneously Ambassador of Afghanistan to the United States from 2014 to 2018. He was then National Security Adviser of Afghanistan from 2018 to 2021, when he fled the country along with Ghani after the 2021 Taliban offensive, just before the collapse of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and the fall of Kabul.
Early life Hamdullah Mohib was born in a small village north of Jalalabad in 1983.Roxanne Roberts, What does Afghanistan need? Some major rebranding, says its 32-year-old ambassador, Washington Post (April 21, 2016). He was the youngest of eleven children.Gail Scott, American Wife of Afghan Envoy Works to Rebuild War-Torn Nation, Washington Diplomat (July 1, 2016). Mohib's father worked in Kabul as a court clerk.
Mohib's family fled Afghanistan during the Soviet war, 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.
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, with honors. Upon completion of his degree, Mohib went on to work for Intel Corporation.
After seven years in the UK, Mohib returned to Afghanistan, as director of information technology at the American University of Afghanistan.Lael Mohib & Hamdullah Mohib, Can Civil Society Save Afghanistan?, Foreign Policy (August 16, 2012). 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.
Mohib then returned to the UK to study for his Ph.D., at Brunel University, in its School of Engineering and Design.End-to-end 3D video communication over heterogeneous networks, Brunel University Research Archive: Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering Theses (2014). His thesis was entitled "End-to-end 3D video communication over heterogeneous networks"; he earned his Ph.D. in 2014.
Mohib has been a civil society leader in the Afghan community around the world. He started the Afghan Students Association of the United Kingdom, Europe's largest Afghan diaspora student organization. He also formed the Afghan Professionals Network and served as its chairman of the Board (APN). He founded the think tank "Discourse Afghanistan" as part of APN, and he established community service programming to serve special needs orphans in Kabul and to honor Afghan women's achievements.
Career Afghan Ambassador to the United States and Deputy Chief of Staff to Ghani 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. Mohib also simultaneously served as non-resident ambassador to Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Argentina, and Colombia.Husain Haqqani, Transcript: The Future of U.S.-Afghanistan Relations: A View from Afghanistan, Hudson Institute (March 13, 2019).
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. 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. Mohib led Afghanistan's presidential negotiating team for several intergovernmental cooperation agreements and the development of its "Realizing Self-Reliance'" reform strategy.
Mohib formally presented his credentials as Afghan Ambassador to the United States to U.S. President Barack Obama in September 2015. During Mohib's tenure as Ambassador, he focused on issues such as women's empowerment and political participation in Afghanistan.
National Security Adviser 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.Afghan President Declines Resignations of Top Security Officials, Radio Free Afghanistan (August 26, 2018).
Role in government 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. 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.Adam Nossiter, Afghan President in 'Desperate Situation' as His Power Is Undermined, New York Times (April 10, 2021). 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. Mohib himself was viewed as a possible future Afghan president.
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.
As Ghani's national security adviser, Mohib sometimes exercised direct control of military operations despite having no military experience. He issued orders that bypassed the ordinary chain of command and called unit commanders directly, sometimes to direct specific targets and troop deployments. Mohib made appointments of district commanders and police chiefs that sometimes went against the desires of local leaders.
Relations with U.S. and position on Taliban talks
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. 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. 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,Pamela Constable, Afghan government, shut out of U.S.-Taliban peace talks, running short on options, Washington Post (March 18, 2019). a reversal of the prior longstanding U.S. policy of refusing to negotiate with the Taliban without the participation of the Afghan government.Rod Nordland & Mujib Mashal, Afghan National Security Chief Is Sidelined in His Own War, New York Times (March 30, 2019).
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.U.S. 'To End Contacts' With Afghan Security Adviser Mohib Following Verbal Attack, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (March 19, 2019).Margaret Brennan, Afghan official accuses top U.S. envoy of undermining Ghani government with colonial intentions, CBS (March 14, 2019). 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. Mohib accused Khalilzad of showing disrespect for the Afghan government and Afghan security forces by "colluding and conspiring" with the Taliban enemy. 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. 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. 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. 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. Mohib did later meet with U.S. officials, including on the sidelines of the 2020 Munich Security Conference and in January 2021, when Mohib and Khalilzad met in Kabul.Why Afghanistan-Taliban peace talks have not reached breakthrough, Al Jazeera (January 12, 2021).
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.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). Mohib described the precondition as a test of whether the Taliban could actually exert control over its commanders and militant forces.