Yunis Khalis

Maulavi Yunis Khalis (1919-2006) was an Afghan regional leader whose influence is greatest in Jalalabad, the capital of Nangahar Province on the boder with Pakistan. Personally a Khugiani Pashtun, his following, a faction of Hezb-e-Islam, is primarily Ghilzai. While he was a fundamentalist who had studied at the Haqqania Madrassa, he probably was more tribally than religiously identified. He was reported to have died on July 19, 2006.

In 1979, he was allied with Jalaluddin Haqqani, Abdul Haq and Hajj Din Mohammed. Mullah Mohammed Omar was one of his junior commanders.

in 1988 he led a delegation of mujahideen leaders to the U.S., and was recognized by Ronald Reagan as a "freedom fighter". He was not a favorite of Inter-Services Intelligence, although he had contacts with them, especially when bin Laden returned to Afghanistan.

When the U.S. pressured the Taliban to surrender bin Laden, Khalis was reported to have replied to the Saudi ambassador, "We are the Afghans. If the livestock in the lands of the two Holy Mosques; the cattle, sheep and camels; sought our protection, we will surely protect it in the best manner and we would not hand it over to no one. So, in what way do we deal with a man who we saw from him nothing but support, Jihad and bestowment? And these are the graves of his brethren and their martyrs are in every region of Afghanistan?? This will not be!".

At the time of the Battle of Tora Bora,, he was in a difficult position. He was not at all pro-American, but had received the third-largest amount of CIA funds. Osama bin Laden was virtually a protege of Khalis, who, with Hajji Abdul Qadir and Engineer Mahmoud -- who first invited him back to Afghanistan after he left Sudan. Michael Scheuer, a CIA officer, said "Khalis had an avuncular interest in bin Laden...Osama lost his father when he was young, and Khalis became a substitute father figure to him. As far as Khalis was concerned, he considered Osama the perfect Islamic youth."

He declared Jihad on the U.S. in 2003, but, by then, was ill and had turned most responsibility to his son, Anwar-ul Haq Mujahid. His party split into anti-government and government factions, and the anti-government faded away. Their leader Hajji Din Mohammed became Kabul’s governor in June 2005