Hanif Baktash

[1] Mohamad Hanif Baktash, an ethnic Pashtun of the Amarkhel tribe, was born on 9 May 1961, in Maidan Shar (30 km far from Kabul).

He started his studies in Mazar-i-Sharif and then continued in Maidan Shar, Kandahar, Helmand and finished Habibia High School of Kabul in 1978.

He received a Ph.D. diploma in History from the Supreme Attestation Commission of the USSR in 1993 for his thesis titled "War in Afghanistan: Social – Political Reasons and Consequences”.

During his time in the UK he cooperated as a journalist with the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) in 1998 and 1999.

[citation needed] In 1976 Baktash won a Pashto poetry prize in Afghanistan which opened his way into Afghan media.