On Wednesday, 10th June Minister Ali Jalali spoke on “Afghanistan: Key Political-Security Trends” at 2-3pm
Ali Jalali was Interior Minister of Afghanistan from January 2003 to September 2005.
He was then responsible for creating a trained force of 50,000 Afghan National Police and 12,000 Border Police. 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. Minister Jalali implemented a nationwide program under the Afghanistan Stabilization Program to extend the central government’s authority to all 34 provinces and 365 districts throughout the country.
He was also Chairman of the Executive Steering Committee of Provincial Reconstruction Teams.
Minister Jalali serves currently as a Distinguished Professor at the US National Defense University’s Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies (NESA) and a researcher at the Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS). His areas of interest include reconstruction/stabilization and peacekeeping operations in Afghanistan and regional issues affecting Afghanistan, Central and South Asia.
Prior to assuming his post as Minister, Mr. Jalali was the Director of Afghanistan National Radio Network Initiative and Chief of the Pashto Service at the Voice of America in Washington, D.C. He has native fluency in English, Pashto, Dari, Persian (Farsi) and Tajik, is fluent in Russian, fluently translates from French and has functional knowledge of Arabic, Turkish and Urdu.
Minister Jalali is a former Colonel in the Afghan Army and a graduate of high command and staff colleges in Afghanistan, the United Kingdom and the United States. Mr. Jalali served as a top military planner with Afghan Resistance following the Soviet invasion in 1979.
This meeting was chaired by Rahul Roy-Chaudhury, Senior Fellow for South Asia, and took place on the Fourth Floor at Arundel House., 13-15 Arundel Street, Temple Place, London WC2R 3D.
