Amongst the fierce Pashtuns, the Ahmadzais of the Ghilji (derived from Gharzay, or mountains, hence ‘hill people’) confederacy, have an illustrious history of valour and conquest. The Khilji dynasty that ruled the Delhi Sultanate between 1290 and 1320, was from the same stock. The Ghilji tribesmen were at the forefront of decimating the retreating 16,000 British East India Company soldiers, of whom only one was deliberately let off to tell the tale of Ghilji ferociousness — British survivor William Brydon, whose wartime accounts of the expeditionary force became part of oral tradition and folklore.
In more contemporary history, the former soldier, spymaster (Head of Intelligence) and later President, Mohammad Najibullah, was also an Ahmadzai. Najibullah was to ultimately meet a gruesome end at the hands of the Taliban, but importantly, Najibullah had stayed back in Kabul to fight the mujahedeen, till it was too late to escape. For four years, Najibullah stayed in the UN compound, and is believed to have been offered the opportunity to flee by Ahmed Shah Massoud as the Taliban were approaching Kabul in 1996. The proud Ahmadzai had apparently refused, and Ahmed Shah Massoud claims that Najibullah feared that “if he [Najibullah] fled with the Tajiks, he would be forever damned in the eyes of his fellow Pashtuns”.