Hamid Karzai

Election officials announced Tuesday that 17 candidates, including several well-known warlords, will challenge incumbent President Hamid Karzai in the Oct. 9 elections. The U.N.-Afghan Joint Electoral Management Body noted that three of the hopefuls drew a large proportion of the objections submitted by citizens and organizations, but it did not reject them as candidates.

Afghan leader Hamid Karzai said Friday that he hoped to stay in power beyond his initial six-month term, and he implored expatriates to return home and help rebuild Afghanistan. The prime minister said he and his Cabinet were working to restore Afghans' confidence in government and to establish international credibility. But the process will take time, he said, and his appointment by the upcoming tribal assembly, or loya jirga, would provide necessary stability.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai, en route to the United States for ceremonies commemorating the Sept. 11 attacks, pledged Sunday to persevere in fighting terrorism, even as violence flared in the southeastern Afghan city of Khowst. Al Qaeda fighters and Afghanistan's former Taliban rulers who gave them shelter "are defeated as a movement but continue to act as individuals," Karzai said during a German stopover. "Of course, they will try some desperate acts."

Hamid Karzai pledged Thursday to use his five-year term as Afghanistan's first elected president to crack down on warlords and drugs. Karzai also offered an olive branch to the Taliban insurgents, even as an offshoot of the former ruling militia threatened to kill three kidnapped United Nations workers who helped to organize the vote.

Afghan leader Hamid Karzai said Friday that he hoped to stay in power beyond his initial six-month term, and he implored expatriates to return home and help rebuild Afghanistan. The prime minister said he and his Cabinet were working to restore Afghans' confidence in government and to establish international credibility. But the process will take time, he said, and his appointment by the upcoming tribal assembly, or loya jirga, would provide necessary stability.

Afghanistan's  ambassador to the United States defended his president's harsh comments about America, saying that Hamid Karzai was only reflecting the sentiments of his public, "as any legitimate president would do. " (see video below) Eklil Hakimi, appearing on CNN on Sunday, was reacting to Karzai's comments that Americans "are demons," and that the alleged killing of 16 unarmed Afghans by a U.S. soldier was "not the first incident, it was the 100th, the 200th and 500th incident.

Statements by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld that America pulled a prominent anti-Taliban leader out of Afghanistan could hurt his chances of gathering support, his relatives said Tuesday as the news filtered into southwestern Pakistan. Hamid Karzai, who had been living in Quetta for several years, left for the mountains of central Afghanistan more than three weeks ago to rally tribal leaders to oppose the Taliban.

One brother will be installed Saturday as the leader of a newly liberated Afghanistan. The other will be planning his newest restaurant in America. Both are members of the Popalzoi, a tribe whose Durrani ancestors--part of the larger Pushtun clan--have been involved in Afghanistan's governance for centuries.

President Hamid Karzai signed a long-awaited investment law Saturday that may finally unclog the flow of much-needed private capital into this war-ravaged nation. The law takes effect immediately and calls for the establishment of a federal commission to assist foreign and domestic investors, award permits and licenses, and channel money into areas where it is needed most, presidential spokesman Said Fazel Akbar said.

Hamid Karzai is battling a resurgent Taliban, an expanded drug trade, deadly intimidation of voters and 17 challengers who want to turn him out as president of Afghanistan in the upcoming election. Now there is another worry: voter fraud. Concerned about reports that some Afghans have registered to vote more than once, the international organization overseeing the scheduled Oct. 9 election is planning to mark the hand of each voter with indelible ink so any who return can be spotted.