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An ethnic Tajik from the Panjsher Valley in Afghanistan, Qunani in an Islamic religious conservative that been working to organize a new political party to appeal to those Afghanis not part of the majority Pashtun ethnic group. He calls his party Mehez-e-Milli (Afghan National Party).
As a member of the Northern Alliance, he strongly supported the United States invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, but opposed Pakistani involvement, as Pakistan favored a reformed Taliban government rather than a new government based upon the Northern Alliance. He is closely associated with the political faction of the late Ahmad Shah Masood, assassinated in 2001.
In 2001, Qanuni served as chief negotiator for the Northern Alliance delegation to the Bonn conference on Afghanistan in Bonn, Germany.
Currently the head of the Education Ministry of the Afghan Transitional Administration (established in June 2002 to replace the removed Taliban government), Qanuni previously served within the transitional government's Ministry of the Interior. He is also officially a "Security Advisor" to interim President Hamid Karzai. Qanuni is currently a candidate to replace Karzai in the election on 9 October 2004. He has been campaigning from Kabul.
Once a political ally of Hamid Karzai's, Qanuni's challenge of Karzai have driven a divide between them. During a campaign rally in Kabul, Qanuni accused Karzai's supporters of jailing his campaign supporters in northern Baghlan and Konduz provinces,
On 5 October 2004, Qanuni's campaign supporter, Abdul Aziz, was assassinated while in Shindand, Afghanistan.
"My candidacy is not to obtain positions, it is to save Afghanistan, to build a government of the future of Afghanistan. So no post and position can stop me from my determination." -August 2004
Agence France Press
Qanuni, Yunus