Sharwal
Ghulam Haider Hamidi
غلام حیدر حمیدی
Mayor of Kandahar
In office
February 2006 – 27 July 2011
Succeeded byMuhammad Nasim Naseem (interim)
Personal details
Born1947[1]
Arghandab District, Kandahar Province, Afghanistan
Died27 July 2011 (aged 65)[2]
Kandahar, Afghanistan
NationalityAfghan-American
Alma materKabul University
OccupationMayor, accountant

Ghulam Haider Hamidi (Pashto: غلام حیدر حمیدی, also spelled Ghulam Haidar Hameedi and also known as Henry Hamidi; 1945 – 27 July 2011) was the Mayor of Kandahar in Afghanistan. During Taliban rule,[citation needed] his family fled to Pakistan, then to the United States.

Hamidi graduated from Kabul University with a degree in finance.[3] He spent a brief period in Pakistan and lived in the United States for almost nineteen years. He settled in the Washington, D.C. area, and worked as an accountant at Trans Am Travel, a wholesale travel agency in Alexandria, Virginia.[4] In 2007, he returned to Afghanistan when the country was under the Karzai administration.[1]

In the late afternoon of 26 July 2011 a plot was discovered by the SFA Team 5 that there was an active plot to assassinate Hamidi by a turban bomb. The team thwarted the attack that day. The team was not present the following morning on 27 July 2011. Hamidi was killed at the municipal building in Kandahar on the morning of July, 27 2011 by a man who had hidden explosives inside his turban. As Hamidi greeted elders in the morning as he often did a man reached up and touched two wires together setting off the explosives killing himself and Hamidi. The target killing or assassination was blamed on the Taliban insurgents, who are guided and supported by foreign elements such as Pakistan's ISI spy agency[5][6] and Iran's Revolutionary Guard's Quds Force.[7][8][9][10]

Two other associates of Afghan President Hamid Karzai – his half brother Ahmad Wali Karzai and Jan Mohammad Khan – were assassinated in the weeks that preceded Haider's killing.[11] Two of Hamidi's deputies and a police chief were previously assassinated. Hamidi himself survived a 2009 bomb attack on his car.[12]

References

  1. ^ a b "Profile of Kandahar mayor Ghulam Haidar Hamidi". CNTV. 2011-07-27. Retrieved September 20, 2011.
  2. ^ "Kandahar Mayor Killed In Suicide Bomb Attack". Breaking News. Sky News. 27 July 2011. Retrieved 27 July 2011.
  3. ^ "Northern Virginians mourn Ghulam Haider Hamidi, assassinated Kandahar mayor". Washington Post. 2011-08-02. Retrieved 2014-03-12.
  4. ^ "Northern Virginians mourn Ghulam Haider Hamidi, assassinated Kandahar mayor". The Washington Post. August 2, 2011.
  5. ^ "U.S. blames Pakistan agency in Kabul attack". Reuters. 22 September 2011. Archived from the original on 25 September 2011. Retrieved 22 September 2011.
  6. ^ "Pakistan condemns US comments about spy agency". Associated Press. 23 September 2011. Archived from the original on 27 July 2013. Retrieved 23 September 2011.
  7. ^ Jha, Lalit K (March 16, 2011). "Concern in US over increasing Iranian activity in Afghanistan". Pajhwok Afghan News. Archived from the original on July 1, 2018. Retrieved January 11, 2012.
  8. ^ O'Rourke, Breffni (April 18, 2007). "Afghanistan: U.S. Says Iranian-Made Weapons Found". Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL). Retrieved January 12, 2012.
  9. ^ "Afghans find tons of explosive devices transferred from Iran". CNN. October 6, 2010. Archived from the original on March 5, 2012. Retrieved January 12, 2012.
  10. ^ Is Iran Supporting the Insurgency in Afghanistan?
  11. ^ Amir Shah, Patrick Quinn, Heidi Vogt, Rahim Faiez, Kathy Gannon (2011-07-27). "Ghulam Haider Hamidi Assassinated: Mayor Of Kandahar Killed By Suicide Bomber, Say Afghan Officials". Huffington Post. Archived from the original on 2011-08-27. Retrieved 2012-04-15. The slaying of Mayor Ghulam Haider Hamidi was the third killing of a Karzai associate in a little more than two weeks.((cite news)): CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  12. ^ "Ghulam Haider Hamidi". The Economist. 6 August 2011. Retrieved 30 August 2012.


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