Amrullah Saleh

In March 2017, he was appointed as State Minister for Security Reforms by President Ashraf Ghani. In December 2018, he was appointed as the Interior Minister by Ghani. He resigned as the Interior Minister on January 19, 2019 to join Ashraf Ghani's election team.

"With Amrullah Saleh, the Afghan people have lost a huge treasure of commitment, awareness and experience in this struggle against terrorism, Al Qaeda and the ISI. I can’t think of anyone who will be able to even slightly fill the vacuum that he leaves behind. Besides being a highly efficient chief at the N.D.S., he is a man of knowledge and research with an incredible memory and intellect. When he analyzed issues at international meetings, he exhibited tremendous ability at logical reasoning. He was head and shoulder above others. ... I had many differences in arguments with him, but I always saw his presence at the N.D.S. as a huge advantage to this country and this government. Despite my high respects for the president's decisions, I am extremely mournful about Saleh's departure. Extremely mournful."

Explaining the reason why the West has not succeeded in Afghanistan, Amrullah emphasized the lack of effort towards creating an anti-Taliban constituency. He wrote, "The anti-Taliban constituency is not an ethnic alliance against the south, but rather a political umbrella for all Afghans who seek a pluralistic society and oppose the Talibanization of the society as part of a so-called reconciliation deal. Perhaps 80 percent of Afghans oppose the Taliban. Such an umbrella will be Afghans’ best representative in any talks with the Taliban, since Karzai and his High Peace Council lack credibility among Afghans who experienced the Taliban's oppressive rule."

On January 19, 2019, Saleh resigned as the Interior Minister to join Ashraf Ghani's election team.

On July 28, 2019, three militants entered Saleh’s office in Kabul after a suicide bomber blew himself up. At least 20 people were killed and 50 injured in the suicide bombing and gun battle at his office. Saleh was not injured in the attack.

President Ashraf Ghani appointed Saleh to become the new interior minister on December 23, 2018, in a major shake up in the government's security positions. At the same time, Asadullah Khalid was appointed the minister for defence. Media have claimed that Saleh and Khalid's vocal anti-Taliban critics could help curb the Taliban both military and in their ongoing peace talks.

"2014 is a year of opportunities, some coalitions will form and whoever wins transparently or in an almost transparent situation, the Afghan people will support the new order ... If there are no reforms, I can foresee a popular uprising, a just uprising different from the Taliban's.

Starting with a rhetorical question—Is NATO losing and the Taliban winning?—Amrullah Saleh discusses the uncertainty among the Afghans about 2014—when NATO ends its combat mission in Afghanistan. He then mentions Afghans’ perception that the US is funding both sides of the conflict because Pakistan remains the key country supporting the insurgency. Amrullah Saleh also discusses why the NATO and the US remain unwilling to confront Pakistan because of their own security concerns. He advocates for a surge in the capacity of the Afghan National Security Forces. Amrullah Saleh highlights the importance of both training and equipment to ensure that cleared areas of Afghanistan are held, communication lines are kept open, and major population centers are defended.

In a recent article for Foreign Policy, titled, "What went wrong with Afghanistan?" published in March 2013, Amrullah Saleh mentioned that the key reason for the current problematic situation in Afghanistan was the West's (US and NATO's) mistaken belief that Pakistan would change its policies in Afghanistan.

On May 3, 2013, the Afghan Green Trend - the grassroots movement led by Amrullah Saleh - organized a large athletic demonstration in support of the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF). It also aimed at denouncing corruption, calling for a clean city and a clean municipality. The demonstration passed through the Afghan parliament building. The demonstrators chanted against the parliament's alleged corruption and denounced MPs who take bribes.

They ended their run at the steps of the historical Darulaman palace and read a declaration: "Our aim is to announce our political and moral support for those who are in the trenches defending the country's sovereignty." Amrullah Saleh said, "To the soldiers who are martyred in line of duty – you lost your lives, but your dreams live on". He also warned against the "politicization of the country's security forces and their misuse towards political means."

On June 9, 2013, in the 10th annual US-Islamic forum organized in Doha by the Brookings institution in partnership with the state of Qatar, Amrullah Saleh spoke in a plenary session titled "Transitions in Afghanistan and Pakistan". Amrullah Saleh warned, "While America's war on terror may be winding down, the war between democratic forces and extremist groups in Afghanistan has not come to an end due to the widespread presence of terrorist sanctuaries, ongoing hostilities between Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the rising momentum in the Taliban's insurgency."

In an article that he wrote for the Wall Street Journal in February 2012, he mentioned, "Talks and a potential ceasefire may provide the US and its NATO allies their justification for a speedy withdrawal, but it won't change the fundamentals of the problem in Afghanistan. Striking a deal with the Taliban without disarming them will shatter the hope of a strong, viable, pluralistic Afghan state."

In his commentaries, Amrullah Saleh also discusses the negative influence of parochial politics and lack of incentives on the development of the Afghan National Security Forces. In an article for Al Jazeera in April 2012, he wrote, "Idealism and belief in values are crucial to strengthening the ranks. But when the security forces witness the decay of values at the leadership level, the incentive for sacrifice plummets. The effectiveness of the force declines. And in such situations ethnic and regional divides, personal connections, and mistrust creep in."

He warns that ethnic politics and internal fragmentation are serious challenges for Afghanistan. In an article for Al Jazeera in June 2012, he wrote, "Pan-Afghan parties don’t exist. Afghans of all ethnic groups have stood together for a common cause but they have failed to share a common platform."

A December 2011 analysis report by the Jamestown Foundation, however, came to the conclusion that "in spite of denials by the Pakistani military, evidence is emerging that elements within the Pakistani military harbored Osama bin Laden with the knowledge of former army chief General Pervez Musharraf and possibly current Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani. Former Pakistani Army Chief General Ziauddin Butt (aka General Ziauddin Khawaja) revealed at a conference on Pakistani–US relations in October 2011 that according to his knowledge the then former Director-General of Intelligence Bureau of Pakistan (2004–2008), Brigadier Ijaz Shah (retd.), had kept Osama bin Laden in an Intelligence Bureau safe house in Abbottabad." Pakistani General Ziauddin Butt said Bin Laden had been hidden in Abbottabad "with the full knowledge" of Pervez Musharraf. Butt later denied making any such statement.

In 2011, Saleh launched a peaceful campaign to warn that Hamid Karzai had lost conviction in the fight against the Taliban and was pursuing a compromise that could come at the cost of democracy, stability and human rights, especially women's rights. He criticized Karzai's policy, which he called a "fatal mistake and a recipe for civil war".

Amrullah Saleh consequently founded the Basej-e Milli (National Movement), also known as Afghanistan Green Trend, a political movement which has successfully established itself in Afghanistan. In May 2011, a mass of followers took part in an anti-Taliban demonstration in the capital Kabul.

In December 2011, Saleh also criticized the corruption of the Karzai government. He warned that if the Afghan government did not commit itself to necessary reforms and to battling corruption, the year 2014 - when international troops plan on having finalized their exit strategy - would be "a year of challenges rather than opportunities". Saleh especially emphasized the need for fundamental reforms in Afghanistan's Independent Electoral Commission.

President Obama visited Kabul in late March 2010 to address the Afghan cabinet and repair ties with Hamid Karzai. Obama reiterated US commitment to Afghanistan, saying, "The United States does not quit once it starts on something." Saleh explained to Obama that the "Pakistanis believe the West has lost" in Afghanistan, and that ISI seeks to exploit the "division between Europe and the United States." He recommended "intense cooperation" between the US and Afghanistan to prevent extremist groups from regaining power.

In early 2010, an Afghan man approached the NDS claiming to represent senior Taliban commander Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour. Offering a letter allegedly written by Mansour, he said Mansour was interested to open a channel for negotiations. Saleh's people started testing the credentials of the supposed messenger, and judged them to be false, closing the case. The man then approached other Afghan government institutions. Saleh recounts, "When I learned ... that he was going through a different avenue, I warned the government that if it is this Aminullah, if he claims this, and if it is this guy, trust me, he is not representing anybody; it's a scam. ... Be careful. This is not Mansour. But there was a perception that Amrullah is against talks, so let's sideline him." The Afghan man, who lived in Pakistan where the Taliban's leadership council is based, subsequently held three meetings with NATO and Afghan officials. Having been flown from Pakistan to Kabul on a NATO airplane, the man met with President Karzai in the presidential palace. In late 2010, it turned out, that the supposed representative for Mansour was an impostor as Saleh had previously warned. The New York Times writes: "In an episode that could have been lifted from a spy novel, United States and Afghan officials now say the Afghan man was an impostor."

On June 6, 2010, Saleh resigned from the NDS while Atmar resigned from his position as interior minister after a militant attack against the national peace jirga, although nobody had been killed or wounded and the attackers had been arrested. A few days after the jirga, Karzai had summoned Atmar and Saleh to discuss the attack against the jirga. After the meeting both men officially resigned because of the failure to stop the attack on the jirga. CNSNews writes: "Saleh told reporters he had submitted his resignation as general director of National Security because he had lost Karzai's trust as a result of the attack. He said he and Atmar had briefed the president on the security preparations for the jirga, and the subsequent "success in ... capturing the facilitators", but Karzai had not been satisfied. He had therefore felt unable to continue in his post. He also said there were "tens" of reasons for leaving his position, but would not elaborate on others." The two men's resignation led to widespread concerns among Afghanistan experts. Concerns were voiced over the direction the country was moving in.

"In June 2010 Atmar and Saleh were also gone. All ... had been highly respected among Afghans and among international partners. Since late 2008 I had been enthusiastic about the number of new reform-oriented politicians in key government positions. That trend now seemed to have been reversed."

It was reported in 2010 that the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and the Taliban "regarded Saleh as their fiercest opponent." He subsequently founded the Basej-e Milli (National mobilization) and Green Trend as a pro-democracy and anti-Taliban movement.

Following the 2009 Afghan presidential election, Afghan President Karzai's views about the security issues confronting Afghanistan and how best to deal with them reportedly changed. This affected the working relationship between the President of Afghanistan and some of his cabinet ministers including his intelligence chief. Saleh said, "He [Karzai] thought democracy had hurt him as a person. His family had been attacked by the media unfairly, and the West was criticizing him unfairly. So after a presidential election, he was a changed man, and we could not have the same relationship as before the presidential election." Political analyst Ahmed Rashid in 2010 observed the same, "Karzai's new outlook is the most dramatic political shift he has undergone in the twenty-six years that I have known him." Both Saleh and Interior Minister Hanif Atmar subsequently had strong disagreements with Karzai on how to proceed against the Taliban, who Karzai began referring to as "brothers". At that point Saleh and Atmar were increasingly isolated in the Karzai administration.

Saleh has become a target of assassination a number of times. During a 60 Minutes interview in the United States in December 2009, Saleh stated:

In 2007, the Afghans specifically identified two Al-Qaeda safe houses in Manshera, a town just miles from Abbottabad, leading them to believe that Bin Laden was possibly hiding there. But Amrullah Saleh says that Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf angrily smashed his fist on a table when Saleh presented the information to him during a meeting in which Afghan President Hamid Karzai also took part. According to Saleh, "He said, 'Am I the president of the Republic of Banana?' Then he turned to President Karzai and said, 'Why have you brought this Panjshiri guy to teach me intelligence?'"

After Saleh sent Pashto-speaking agents to infiltrate the Taliban's operations in Pakistan, the NDS gathered information on militants' homes, mosques, businesses, and families. In the spring of 2006, Saleh conducted numerous interviews with Taliban commanders, and determined ISI began increasing aid for the militants the year before. Based on the evidence, Saleh predicted that by 2009, the Taliban would mount assaults on major southern cities and wage a full-fledged insurgency.

In 2005, Saleh engaged several NDS agents infiltrating the Pakistani tribal areas to search for bin Laden and other al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders. Several al-Qaeda members could be identified, but it was determined that Bin Laden was not in the area. In 2006, Saleh was presented with evidence that bin Laden was living in a major settled area of Pakistan just 20 miles from the town of Abbottabad, Pakistan. He shared the intelligence with former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf who angrily brushed off the claim, taking no action.

After the formation of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan in December 2004, Saleh was appointed as head of the National Directorate of Security (NDS) by President Hamid Karzai. Saleh initiated structural reforms and helped rebuild the Afghan intelligence service. Saleh and former interior minister Hanif Atmar were viewed by the international community as two of the most competent cabinet members in the Afghan government. A western security expert told The Guardian that both men had a reputation for "clearing corruption within" their organs.

As early as 2004, agents working for Afghan intelligence determined that Bin Laden was living in a major settled area in Pakistan proper, rather than the semi-autonomous tribal areas on the Afghan-Pakistan border, Amrullah Saleh told The Guardian. Leading Saleh and Afghan intelligence to that conclusion were "thousands of interrogation reports" and the assumption that Bin Laden "a millionaire with multiple wives and no background of toughness would not be living in a tent". "I was pretty sure he was in the settled areas of Pakistan because in 2005 it was still very easy to infiltrate the tribal areas, and we had massive numbers of informants there. They could find any Arab but not Bin Laden."

After the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, Saleh participated in leading intelligence operations of the United Front on the ground during the toppling of the Taliban regime.

According to Ambassador Hank Crumpton from the CIA, who led the Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan in 2001, Saleh possessed "good technical skills and emerging leadership traits". Ambassador Crumpton also writes in his recent book that he found Saleh to be "young, brilliant, honest, and devoted to a free Afghanistan".

Prior to heading the Afghan intelligence, he was a member of Ahmad Shah Massoud's Northern Alliance. In 1997, Saleh was appointed by Massoud to serve as Northern Alliance's liaison office inside the Afghan Embassy in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, handling contacts to international non-governmental (humanitarian) organizations and intelligence agencies. After resigning from the NDS in 2010, Saleh created a pro-democracy and anti-Taliban movement called Basej-e Milli (National Mobilization) and Green Trend.

Speaking during the inauguration of an Islamic foundation in Kabul, Saleh said the Karzai government and the United States of America cannot represent the anti-Taliban Afghan civilians and initiate peace talks while simultaneously excluding them. The former Afghan Intelligence Chief insisted on considering the views of the Afghan people during the peace talks process, as a majority of Afghans both in the northern and southern regions, he said, have negative views of the Taliban. He also questioned the honesty of the Taliban's involvement in peace talks. The recent objections by nearly all major opposition parties come amid growing efforts by the US and Hamid Karzai to make headway in secret talks with the Taliban and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hezb-i Islami. In these talks representatives from the anti-Taliban United Front, which fought the Taliban from 1994 until 2001 and unites leaders representing roughly 60% of Afghanistan's population, are being excluded. Criticizing the secretive nature of US talks with the Taliban, which they suspect might end in a return of the Taliban to power, opposition leaders have asked for a transparent UN-led peace process.

In 1990, in order to avoid being conscripted into the Soviet-backed Afghan army, Saleh joined the opposition mujahideen forces. He received military training in neighboring Pakistan and fought under mujahideen commander Ahmad Shah Massoud.

In the late 1990s, Saleh was a member of the Northern Alliance (also known as the United Front) and was fighting against the Taliban expansion. In 1997, Saleh was appointed by Massoud to lead the United Front's international liaison office at the Embassy of Afghanistan in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, where he served as a coordinator for non-governmental (humanitarian) organizations and as a liaison partner for foreign intelligence agencies.

Amrullah Saleh (Dari/Pashto: امرالله صالح ; born 15 October 1972) is an Afghan politician who is serving as the Vice President of Afghanistan. He served as the Minister of Interior Affairs of Afghanistan until January 19, 2019, and as head of the National Directorate of Security (NDS) from 2004 until his resignation in 2010.

Saleh was born in October 1972 in Panjshir, Afghanistan. He belongs to the Tajik ethnic group.