Photo Gallery The Hardest Job In The World
Under a new flag: Hamid Karzai took the job of Interim Authority Chairman in 2001.
Karzai is a Pashtun, which is the ethnic majority in Afghanistan.
Born in Kandahar in 1957, Karzai was educated in Kabul and went to university in Simla, India. He worked as a fund-raiser supporting the struggle against the Soviets in the 1980s and served as Deputy Foreign Minister in the government of Burhanuddin Rabbani in the 1990s.
Karzai voting in Afghanistan's first elections, held in October 2004.
In December 2004, Karzai was sworn in as the first democratically elected president of Afghanistan.
Karzai speaking to the United Nations in New York. It was not only the diplomats who were impressed. Designer Tom Ford described Karzai as 'the chicest man on the planet today.'
There have been several attempts on Karzai's life. In 2004 a rocket was fired at his US military helicopter as it was landing in the southeastern town of Gardez.
In 2008 another attempt on his life was made during a military parade. Karzai escaped unhurt.
Karzai has often been accused of being at the beck and call of his 'puppetmasters' in the US. However since the end of the Bush administration, those accusations have died away somewhat.
Barack Obama and Karzai have agreed to continue to fight terrorism.
Karzai is leading polls in the upcoming Afghan elections.
Should he win, Karzai's choice for vice president is Mohammed Fahim, who is alleged to have committed dozens of war crimes.
Opium fields in Afghanistan. In exchange for their people's votes, gangsters, war criminals and drug barons have been offered a place on Karzai's political team.
Taliban fighters. Karzai has just had Rashid Dostum return from exile. Dostum is alleged to have had up to 1,500 Taliban fighters taken into the desert and jailed inside sea freight containers. A few of the prisoners died when Dostum's men fired bullets at the containers. But most of them perished due to a lack of water and the heat of the desert.
Afghani supporters of Karzai sit under a sign bearing his photograph.
In the last remaining days before voting, candidates have been particularly visible -- such as this public rally that Karzai attended.
Karzai's biggest competition comes from former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah.
General Abdul Rashid Dostum, in the gray turban, leader of Afghanistan"s Uzbek community, arrives at Kabul international airport. A powerful and controversial Afghan warlord who has been in exile in Turkey, Dostum returned to Kabul on Sunday.
Crowds of Dostum's supporters. Dostum returned to Afghanistan on Sunday after his supporters threatened to withdraw support for President Hamid Karzai in the upcoming elections.
There are around 40 candidates for president in the election, including two women.
