The National
In Kabul's political circles, they are known as the "Beiruti boys" – part of a generation of Afghan leaders who shaped their politics in the sandstone corridors of the American University of Beirut, where they studied together in the 1970s.
By 2018, Zalmay Khalilzad had become the US Special Representative for Afghan Reconciliation, and Ashraf Ghani was Afghanistan's president. They were two halves of a US-Afghan equation to find a solution to the resurgence of the Taliban. READ MORE