Sayed Ishaq Gailani is a national politician in Afghanistan. He is the founder and chairman of the National Solidarity Movement of Afghanistan

National Solidarity Movement of Afghanistan

The party known as National Solidarity Movement of Afghanistan is led by Sayed Ishaq Gailani. It supported Hamid Karzai in the 2004 presidential election despite its previous support for the former King Zahir Shah. It is connected with powerful conservative families in the Pashtun region.The NSMA...

. He was the first announced presidential candidate for the 2004 Afghan general election. He claims leadership of the Gailani family, leaders of the Qadiriyah sect of Sufism, but is estranged from his family.

Ghailani was born in 1954 in Shar-e Naw, Kabul. He grew up in Kabul under the supervision of his father. Gailani, a renowned politician and a veteran journalist, lived in Peshawar

Peshawar

Peshawar is the capital of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and the administrative center and central economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan....

, Pakistan

Pakistan

Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...

, for several years after the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan in 1996.

During testimony at Kako Kandahari's
Combatant Status Review Tribunal

Combatant Status Review Tribunal

The Combatant Status Review Tribunals were a set of tribunals for confirming whether detainees held by the United States at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp had been correctly designated as "enemy combatants". The CSRTs were established July 7, 2004 by order of U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense...

 Haji

Hajji

Hajji or El-Hajj, is an honorific title given to a Muslim person who has successfully completed the Hajj to Mecca, and is often used to refer to an elder, since it can take time to accumulate the wealth to fund the travel. The title is placed before a person's name...

 Ghalib

Ghalib (Guantanamo detainee 987)

Haji Ghalib is a citizen of Afghanistan who was held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba. His Guantanamo Internment Serial Number was 987. The Department of Defense estimates he was born in 1963, in Nangarhar, Afghanistan...

 testified that he
had traveled to Persian Gulf

Persian Gulf

The Persian Gulf, in Southwest Asia, is an extension of the Indian Ocean located between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula.The Persian Gulf was the focus of the 1980–1988 Iran-Iraq War, in which each side attacked the other's oil tankers...

 during the Gulf War

Gulf War

The Persian Gulf War , commonly referred to as simply the Gulf War, was a war waged by a U.N.-authorized coalition force from 34 nations led by the United States, against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait.The war is also known under other names, such as the First Gulf...

, under the leadership of an individual named Said Ghalani, to join the coalition opposing Iraq

Iraq

Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....

's invasion of Kuwait

Kuwait

The State of Kuwait is a sovereign Arab state situated in the north-east of the Arabian Peninsula in Western Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the south at Khafji, and Iraq to the north at Basra. It lies on the north-western shore of the Persian Gulf. The name Kuwait is derived from the...

.
He testified Ghalani was leading a
group of Afghan

Afghanistan

Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...

 mujahideen

Mujahideen

Mujahideen are Muslims who struggle in the path of God. The word is from the same Arabic triliteral as jihad .Mujahideen is also transliterated from Arabic as mujahedin, mujahedeen, mudžahedin, mudžahidin, mujahidīn, mujaheddīn and more.-Origin of the concept:The beginnings of Jihad are traced...

 called
the Mahazamili

Mahazamili

Mahazmili is a political party in Afghanistan.It has been led, since its founding, by members of a prominent Sufi family, the Gailani....

.