Toronto, Dec 19 (IANS) A Canadian of Afghan origin will be the next governor of the volatile province of Kandahar in Afghanistan.
Tooryalai Wesa, who holds a dual citizenship, fled his home in Kandahar in 1991 to settle at Coquitlam near Vancouver. He met Afghan President Hamid Karzai Thursday to discuss his role in containing the increasing Taliban insurgency in the Kandahar province.
Though there is no official word here on his appointment to one of the most challenging jobs in Afghanistan, Canada has a huge stake in securing the province as it has more than 2,500 troops fighting insurgents there.
The appointment of an Afghan-Canadian assumes even more significance as the Canadian toll just crossed 100 last week, with six soldiers dying in improvised explosive devices planted by the Taliban.
Wesa told a Canadian television channel that he would serve as a bridge between the local population and foreign troops, diplomats and aid workers in Afghanistan.
Fluent in Pashto, Dari, Farsi, English, German and Arabic, Wesa did his PhD from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, with the Soviet Union occupation of Afghanistan and its negative impact as his thesis.
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