Yunis Khalis

Mawlawi Mohammad Yunus Khalis (alternate spellings Yunis and Younas) (Pashto: محمد يونس خالص‎; c. 1919 − July 19, 2006) was a mujahideen commander in Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. His party was called Hezb-i-Islami ("Party of Islam"), the same as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's party. The two are commonly differentiated as Hezb-e Islami Khalis and Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin.

He was a staunch conservative fundamentalist and virulently anti-Shia, though not--unlike Gulbadin Hekmatyar, his original commander with whom he severed his ties for being too extreme--a hardliner, and wrote the 1991 treatise "An Appeal to Support the Holy War in the Sudan". After the fall of the communist government in 1992, his forces controlled Nangarhar Province in eastern Afghanistan.

Maulvi Mohammad Yunus Khalis was born in 1919 in Khogyani District, Nangarhar Province in Afghanistan and became a powerful figure in his country’s turbulent modern history. Educated in Islamic law and theology, Khalis exercised influence through his conservative vision of Islamic society. Sometimes referred to as the don of Nangarhar, he was also a shrewd politician who wielded considerable power behind the scenes during one of the most turbulent and violent periods in his country’s history.

After the overthrow of Mohammad Zahir Shah by Mohammad Daoud in 1973, Khalis fled to Pakistan and joined Hekmatyar's Islamic Party (Hezb-e Islami). After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Khalis broke with Hekmatyar and established his own party (Hezb-e Islami Khalis).

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