A leader of Hizb-i-Islami, Afghanistan. Gulbuddin was one of the seven mujaheddin factions that fought the Russian occupation of Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989 and was once the pivotal figure in American's proxy war against the Russians. At one point receiving 90 per cent of military aid, he is believed to have obtained more than $3 billion. Yet now Gulbuddin, according to the Western media, has forged an alliance with Al-Qaeda and Talliban to expel American troops from Afghanistan and overthrow the western-backed government of President Hamid Karzai. In 1992, when mujaheddin finally took Kabul and formed their own government he refused to take his turn in the post of prime minister while his great rival Ahmad Shah Masoud was defence minister. Eventually, when the Talliban emerged, he joined forces with Masoud, but it was too late. In 1996, Gulbuddin went into exile in Iran. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, an engineering graduate, has re-emerged on the Afghan scene after being expelled from Iran in 2002. The Americans have made no secret of their desire to get rid of him and a CIA-operated Predator drone narrowly missed him near Kabul in May 2002.