Politician and key leader in Afghan struggle. Afghanistan's vice president and minister of Public Works. Qadir was one of the three vice presidents chosen to serve in the Cabinet of president Hamid Karzai. Qadir had been vice-chairman of the Northern Alliance delegation at the Bonn talks, sponsored by the United Nations in December 2001, which established post-Taleban interim administration. Qadir was part of the complex process of providing ethnic balance within the government, still retaining his hold on power in mountainous home province of Nangarhar where he served as governor from 1952 to 1996. Qadir's involvement in Afghan politics predated the 1979 Soviet invasion but, during the ensuing war, he was a key commander with Hezb-I-Islami (Islamic party). He was a veteran mojahedeen commander, and a controversial military and political leader in the 1980s. During the Taleban's regime in Afghanistan, Qadir took refuge in Pakistan and later shuttled between Dubai, where he ran a successful trading business and Germany. Qadir was born in Pashtun's Ahmadzai tribe, and belonged to one of the most influential, affluent and prominent families in the east of Afghanistan. He was energetic, dynamic and moderate. He was gunned down in his own car as he left the ministry in Kabul. His younger brother, Abdul Haq the legendary rebel leader, was also assassinated, in October 2001, while he had secretly re-entered Afghanistan to apparently muster Pashtun resistance.