During the Soviet occupation from 1979 to 1989, over six million Afghan refugees fled to Pakistan, Iran and other countries, 85 percent of whom were Pashtuns. This reduced the Pashtun population in Afghanistan from 51 to 38 percent. It is expected that their numbers will increase as refugees return following the defeat of the Taliban in 2001.

Hamid Karzai, the Chairman of the Afghan Interim Government, is a Pashtun from Kandahar. His father was Chief of the powerful Popolzai tribe until he was assassinated in 1999. After the attack on New York City in September 2001, Karzai was responsible for influencing many Pashtun tribal leaders to abandon the extremist Taliban government. He also held talks with different ethnic leaders to gain support for the international coalition in the War on Terror led by the US. He is currently preparing the country for the Loya Jirga, the traditional grand council of tribal leaders, to be held in June 2002.

Karzai has maintained close contact with fellow Popolzai tribe member, King Mohammad Zahir Shah. The King has lived in exile in Rome since he was deposed in a bloodless coup in 1973, but he still has a powerful following. In 1963, he embarked on a reform campaign that included the creation of an elected parliament, freedom of the press and increased rights for women. In the late 1990s, he suggested that a Loya Jirga be convened where tribal leaders would choose a new government, but the Taliban government opposed him. Chairman Karzai has renewed the King's proposal. Today leaders from different ethnic groups and some government ministers are considered part of the Rome Group, which supports the King. Mirwais Zahir, the King's fourth son, is interested in participating in the rebuilding of Afghanistan but presently has no position in the government.

Pashtun Gulbuddin Hekmatyar is the leader of Hizb-e-Islami, the Islamic Party of Afghanistan. He received Saudi and US aid during the Soviet regime and was reportedly the most powerful Mujahideen leader before the Taliban government took power. In 1992, he was named Prime Minister in the administration of President Rabbani but was forced to withdraw due to internal disputes.

Then, in an attempt to capture Kabul, he staged a military attack in which thousands of civilians were killed and hundreds of thousands were forced to flee to refugee camps. In 1996, having made peace with Rabbani, he was renamed Prime Minister, but three months later the Taliban seized the capital and Hekmatyar fled to Iran. In February 2002, the Iranian government expelled him because he was organizing a coalition of Afghan forces to oppose the Interim Government on grounds that Chairman Karzai was a puppet of the US. Hekmatyar also accused the former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani of renewing his power "with foreign tanks." Tehran supports Karzai's Interim Administration. Hekmatyar, whose exact whereabouts are currently unknown, has been called "the most notorious of the warlords."

Pashtun civilians in the northern ethnic Uzbek city of Mazar-e-Sharif came under widespread attack in March 2002, allegedly in revenge for cruel acts committed by the predominantly Pashtun Taliban. Mullah Mohammed Omar, a Pashtun, founded the Taliban ostensibly to establish order in warring Afghanistan. He declared himself a spiritual leader after cloaking himself in a gown said to have belonged to the Prophet Mohammed, but his government's extremist version of Islam terrorized the people and was rejected by Muslim leaders around the world. The Afghan Interim Government, the US and the international coalition are searching for him and his father-in-law, Osama Bin Laden.

Pir Sayeed Ahmed Gailani from Gardez in the eastern state of Paktia is regarded as a moderate Pashtun and the spiritual leader of the minority Sufi Muslim group. He is the head of the Mahaz-e-Milli-Islami, the National Islamic Front, which supports King Zahir. Because of his links with the Pakistani elite, he is unpopular among Afghans who resent Pakistan's militant influence in their country via the Taliban.

The Pashtun leader Muhammad Najibullah was President from 1987 to 1992. When the Russians withdrew from Afghanistan, his government was replaced by Rabbani's administration. Before the Taliban took Kabul in 1996, Rabbani fled to the north, but Najibullah was not farsighted and he stayed in the capital. The Taliban executed him by hanging him from a goalpost in the main soccer stadium.