Ali Jalali

In January 2009 an article by Ahmad Majidyar of the American Enterprise Institute included Jalali on a list of fifteen possible candidates in the 2009 Afghan Presidential election. However, according to Chapter Three, Article Sixty Two of Afghanistan Constitution an Afghan citizen shall be the president of Afghanistan. Since Afghanistan has not signed any dual citizenship accords, it would have been necessary for him to renounce his U.S. citizenship and gain Afghan citizenship before seeking the office. Jalali did not complete these steps, and was not listed on the ballot in August 2009.

Ali Ahmad Jalali (Pashto/Dari: علی احمد جلالی) is an Afghan politician, diplomat, and academic. Jalali served as the Minister of Interior from January 2003 to September 2005. He has also been a distinguished professor at the Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies (NESA) at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C. In August 2021, amid the collapse of the US-backed Afghan government, Jalali was rumored to become the leader of the Taliban-controlled interim Afghan government, which he has denied on Twitter as "fake news."

As Interior Minister of post-Taliban Afghanistan, he created a trained force of 50,000 Afghan National Police (ANP) and 12,000 Border Police to work effectively in counter-narcotics, counter-terrorism, and criminal investigation to fight against organized crime and illegal border crossings. He successfully led the country-wide operations to protect the constitutional grand assembly (Loya Jirga) in 2003, the nationwide voters’ registration drive and landmark 2004 Presidential election, and the parliamentary elections in 2005.

Jalali is the author of several books, including a three-volume military history of Afghanistan. His most recent book, The Other Side of the Mountain (2002), co-authored with Lester Grau, is an analytical review of the Mujahedin war with the Soviet forces in Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989.

Jalali wrote an influential critique in the spring of 2002 of the U.S. military role in Afghanistan, arguing that the way the United States used local chieftains in the War on Terrorism "enhanced the power of the warlords and encouraged them to defy the central authorities." He later softened his criticism but pointed out that local militias still play a significant role in working with the U.S. military.

Jalali's articles and comments are also published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor and many other major U.S and European papers. Many of his scholarly articles are published by the Parameters, the senior professional journal of the U.S. Army, from 2001 to 2010.

A U.S. citizen since 1987, Jalali left his job as a broadcaster for VOA to become the Interior Minister of Afghanistan. Jalali replaced Taj Mohammad Wardak in January 2003.

Prior to assuming the ministerial post in Kabul, Jalali served in executive broadcast positions at Voice of America in Washington, D.C. from 1982 to 2003. During this period he, directed broadcasts in Pashto, Dari, Persian languages to Afghanistan, Iran and Central Asia. As a journalist, he covered the war in Afghanistan from 1982 to 1993 and the former Soviet Central Asia from 1993 to 2000 and traveled extensively across the region.

During his military service in Afghanistan army (1961–81), Jalali served in command, staff and educational posts with a final rank of colonel. He attended higher educational institutions in Afghanistan, United States, United Kingdom and Russia.

Jalali was born in Kabul, Afghanistan in 1940, the son of the late Professor G. Jelani Jalali. He has been involved in politics and media for most of his life. He previously served with the Voice of America for over 20 years covering Afghanistan, South and Central Asia, and the Middle East, including assignments as Director of the Afghan Radio Network Project and chief of the Dari and Pashto services.