Sayed Ishaq Gailani

Pir Sayed Ishaq Gailani about ten years ago

Pir Sayed Ishaq Gailani (born 1954) is a politician in Afghanistan representing Paktika province in the Wolesi Jirga, Afghanistan's lower house of parliament.[1] He is the founder and chairman of the National Solidarity Movement of Afghanistan and currently serves on the Wolesi Jirga's International Relations committee. While still an influential member of the Gailani family, he has claimed leadership of the family and adopted the title Pir. However, most of his family recognizes his uncle, Ahmed Gailani, as the leader of the family and the Qadiriyya Sufi order. The resulting dispute has created a feud between the two men.[2]

Ishaq Gailani was born in 1954 in the Shāre Naw section of Kabul. He attended Masod-e Sad School for his primary and secondary education and later went to Naderia High School.[3] After the Soviet invasion in 1979, he fled to Pakistan to rally support to fight the Soviet-backed Afghan government. During the war, he fought alongside his uncle, Pir Ahmad Gailani, and Sibghatullah Mojaddedi in the National Islamic Front (Mahaz-e Milli-ye Islami-ye Afghanistan). He would again return to exile in Pakistan when the Taliban seized power nearly 25 years later.

In 2002, he established the National Solidarity Movement of Afghanistan and ran as its presidential candidate in the 2004 Afghan Presidential Elections. He won 16,000 votes in Paktika, second only to Hamid Karzai. In the 2005 Parliamentary Elections, he won 13 percent of the vote - the most of all candidates. He remains an important figure for many Sufis and Khogiani tribesmen in Pakitka, despite having never lived there himself.

During testimony at Kako Kandahari's Combatant Status Review Tribunal Haji Ghalib testified that he had traveled to Persian Gulf during the Gulf War, under the leadership of an individual named Said Ghalani, to join the coalition opposing Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.[4] He testified Ghalani was leading a group of Afghan mujahideen called the Mahazamili.

References

  1. ↑ "Paktika Executive Summary" (PDF). Navy Postgraduate School. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2009-12-05.
  2. ↑ IDS International (2010). Paktika Provincial Handbook: A Guide to the People and the Province. Southeastern Region Series. IDS International. External link in |publisher= (help)
  3. ↑ About Sayed Ishaq Gailani (Founder of NSMA)
  4. ↑ Summarized transcripts (.pdf), from Kako Kandahari's Combatant Status Review Tribunal - pages 62-73
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