Engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the limit ...

Muhammad Arif Sarwari, also known simply as Engineer Arif, is a former

Afghan Afghan may refer to: *Something of or related to Afghanistan, a country in Southern-Central Asia *Afghans, people or citizens of Afghanistan, typically of any ethnicity ** Afghan (ethnonym), the historic term applied strictly to people of the Pas ...

intelligence official and politician.

Pre-Taliban

Sarwari studied electronics at a technical college, later transferring to Kabul Polytechnic. He did not complete his studies, instead joining the anti-Soviet resistance in 1982 during the

Soviet–Afghan War The Soviet–Afghan War was a protracted armed conflict fought in the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989. It saw extensive fighting between the Soviet Union and the Afghan mujahideen (alongside smaller groups of anti-Sovie ...

. In 1992, after the ouster of the

communists Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...

, he was appointed the Chief of Security of Kabul. He later served as the first deputy of

National Directorate of Security The National Directorate of Security (NDS; ps, د ملي امنیت لوی ریاست; prs, ریاست عمومی امنیت ملی) was the national intelligence and security service of Afghanistan. The headquarters of the NDS was in Kabul, ...

. When the

Taliban The Taliban (; ps, طالبان, ṭālibān, lit=students or 'seekers'), which also refers to itself by its state name, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a Deobandi Islamic fundamentalist, militant Islamist, jihadist, and Pasht ...

seized

Kabul Kabul (; ps, , ; , ) is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. Located in the eastern half of the country, it is also a municipality, forming part of the Kabul Province; it is administratively divided into 22 municipal districts. Acco ...

he joined the forces of

Ahmad Shah Masoud Ahmad Shah Massoud (Dari/Pashto: , ; September 2, 1953September 9, 2001) was an Afghan politician and military commander. He was a powerful guerrilla commander during the resistance against the Soviet–Afghan War, Soviet occupation between 1979 a ...

, who was later to lead the

Afghan Northern Alliance The Northern Alliance, officially known as the United Islamic National Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan ( prs, جبهه متحد اسلامی ملی برای نجات افغانستان ''Jabha-yi Muttahid-i Islāmi-yi Millī barāyi Nijāt ...

Northern Alliance and post-war

During the period of

rule, Sarwari was the chief intelligence official of the Northern Alliance under Ahmad Shah Massoud. Massoud's September 9, 2001 assassination took place in Aref's office. After the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commer ...

, he was a major figure in coordinating with the

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...

's JAWBREAKER team, which worked with the Northern Alliance and prepared the way for further

military operations A military operation is the coordinated military actions of a state, or a non-state actor, in response to a developing situation. These actions are designed as a military plan to resolve the situation in the state or actor's favor. Operations ma ...

. After the fall of Kabul he and his organization took over the existing Afghan National Directorate of Security, but he was removed by Afghan President

Hamid Karzai Hamid Karzai (; Pashto/ fa, حامد کرزی, , ; born 24 December 1957) is an Afghan statesman who served as the fourth president of Afghanistan from July 2002 to September 2014, including as the first elected president of the Islamic Repub ...

in early 2004 and replaced by

Amrullah Saleh Amrullah Saleh (Pashto/ prs, امرالله صالح, ; born 15 October 1972) is an Afghan politician who served as the first vice president of Afghanistan from February 2020 to August 2021, and acting interior minister from 2018 to 2019. He w ...

Governor of Panjshir

Sarwari was Governor of Panjshir Province .

Personal life

Sarwari is married and has two sons and three daughters. He speaks Dari, Pashto, Russian and English.

References

Generic references

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Sarwari, Muhammad Arif Living people Members of the House of Elders (Afghanistan) Governors of Panjshir Province Kabul Polytechnic University alumni 1961 births