Abdul Rahim Wardak

GeneralAbdul Rahim Wardak (; Pashto/Dari: عبدالرحیم وردک; born 1945) is an Afghan politician and former Defense Minister of Afghanistan. He was appointed on December 23, 2004, by Afghan PresidentHamid Karzai. Before this appointment, Wardak was the deputy Defense Minister to the former minister, Mohammed Fahim. During the 1980s Soviet–Afghan War, Wardak had been a national Mujahideen resistance leader who fought the Soviet forces. He is an ethnic Pashtun from the Wardak province. Fluent in Pashto, Dari (Persian), and English, his diplomacy has been instrumental in promoting ethnic reconciliation due to his lineage from tribal chieftains with strong Pashtun relationships with all ethnic groups of the country.

General Wardak has testified in front of the U.S. Congress, on how to stabilize the Afghanistan-Pakistan region. He met with Richard Holbrooke in 2009, the U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, to discuss security with NATO's defense ministers and NATO's supreme allied commander for Europe, U.S. General John Craddock. In 2009, General Wardak spoke at a Washington think tank, Center for a New American Security, where he said "changing course, adopting a new strategy of containment or dropping the idea of a strong central government will be falling into the trap the enemy has laid, helping them to achieve their evil objectives." He signed an accord with NATO commanders for improved cooperation and coordination in counter-terrorism operations. In August 2012, Wardak resigned after receiving a vote of no confidence from the Afghan Parliament. He was also a candidate in the 2014 presidential election.