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Gul Agha Sherzai is the current Governor of Nangarhar province in Afghanistan. He previously served as Governor of Kandahar province, in the early 1990s and from 2001 until 2003.

Gul Agha was born by the name of Shafiq to a poor restaurant owner. He took the name Gul Agha when he joined his father in the Mujahideen, who were fighting against the Soviet invasion. His father was murdered and he added Sherzai (Pashto for "son of lion") as his last name. He is an ethnic Pashtun from the Kandahar area. After the collapse of the PDPA government in 1991, Gul Agha served as Governor of Kandahar from 1992 until 1994. His rule was reputed to be exceptionally bloody and vicious, even by Afghan warlord standards.

His capture of Kandahar city in late 2001, with assistance from American special forces and airstrikes, marked the first time territory in southern Afghanistan had been captured from the Taliban. In August 2003, President Hamid Karzai decreed that officials could no longer hold both military and civil posts, and replaced Gul Agha with Yousef Pashtun as Governor of Kandahar. However, after much lobbying, Gul Agha was able to retain his governorship temporarily.

In 2004, Sherzai was appointed Governor of Nangarhar Province, after a spell as "Special Advisor" to Hamid Karzai. Sherzai was removed as Kandahar Governor after criticisms of his warlord-style leadership, poor human rights record and suspected involvement in opium trafficking in the province. However, Sherzai is an important political ally of Karzai, and looks to play a role in Afghan politics for some time to come.

In July 2006, Sherzai narrowly escaped an assassination attempt at a funeral outside Jalalabad. The attempt killed five police officers and wounded several more people, including some children. He opened the newly built highway connecting Jalalabad city with Torkham, which is the border town between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistan's prime minister Shaukat Aziz were also present there during the innauguration.^[1] Taliban forces took credit for the attack.

• BBC News - Afghanistan's Powerbrokers (Gul Agha Sherzai)
• GlobalSecurity - Military (Gul Agha Sherzai)
• Profile: Gul Agha Sherzai
• Photos - Governor's Palace in Jalalabad, Afghanistan

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