Quick Facts
Biography
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, his family fled to Pakistan, then to the United States.
Hamidi graduated from Kabul University with a degree in finance.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. In 2007, he returned to Afghanistan when the country was under the Karzai administration.
On 27 July 2011, Hamidi was killed in Kandahar by a man who had hidden explosives inside his turban. 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 and Iran's Revolutionary Guard's Quds Force.
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. Two of Hamidi's deputies and a police chief were previously assassinated. Hamidi himself survived a 2009 bomb attack on his car.
