Ismail Khan

Ismail Khan is an Afghan regional leader, whose base has been centered around Herat city and Herat Province in the West. He is significant as being one of the Afghan leaders closest to Iran, although he has demonstrated some moves not in Iran's favor. A Dari-speaking Tajik, he led the 1979 revolt against the Communist-friendly Taraki government's land reform, in which Soviet advisers and families were killed, triggering an intense Afghan-Soviet response that killed up to 24,000 Heratis and destroyed most of the city. He remained respected in the area and was considered to run a reasonably competent administration. Ahmed Rashid, who had known him personally for nearly two decades, describes him as a "genuine warlord, both ruthless and popular, a provider of essential services to the people and a perpetrator of terror".

He fought the Taliban but was defeated and escaped to Iran in 1995. He was also imprisoned by them at one point, but escaped. In the Afghanistan War (2001-), he joined the Northern Alliance and was part of defeating the Taliban. When the invasion began, his forces liberated Herat before the main alliance forces reached Kabul. The U.S. fired cruise missiles at his headquarters in January 2002.

In the spring of 2002, Rashid said he was hosting US special operators, watching Iran. Khan played Iranian, US, and Taliban interests against one another. Rashid visited Khan, asking him to allow a nonpolitical magazine, which he had started to provide information on reconstruction, he had started to resume publishing. He did so, "as a favor to an old friend", but twice arrested the leader of the publishing group, the Council of Professionals, Mohammed Rafiq Shahir, and tortured him. Khan freed him only after the Americans, the UN, and Karzai intervened. The Council continued operations.

He became governor of Herat, a powerful post, but was removed in 2004 by President Hamid Karzai, who made him national Minister of Energy.