Prince Ali aims to rule Afghanistan

The great grandson of Afghanistan's legendary Iron Amir – a brute who once forced an adulterous man to eat his mistress – has joined the race to be the country's next president. In his first interview for a British newspaper since accepting the nomination last month, Prince Abdul Ali Seraj, a hardliner himself, though perhaps not on the scale of his ancestor, told the Independent that he wants to launch "psychological warfare" against the Taliban and reclaim Islamic law from the extremists.

The Prince (pictured), who, hard to believe, once owned a nightclub in Kabul – it was back in the disco days of the 1970s - insists Afghanistan needs a "change candidate" because the sitting president Hamid Karzai’s compromises with the West have failed.

"Trying to force fit Afghanistan into a Western template is likely to arouse resistance and risk failure,” he said. “Afghan history has plenty of examples where reforming zeal has foundered on the rocks of conservatism."

Ali, as he likes to be known, has a colourful back story. He fled Afghanistan in 1978 after a communist coup, disguised as a hippy, and owes his life to a bunch of stoned Australian hippies who smuggled him out of the country in their bus.

He returned in 2002 after the Taliban regime collapsed, and is not in any way ashamed of his bloody forebear - indeed he says he is his hero. Echoing his great grandfather's nickname, he said the next president needs an "iron fist". "Afghanistan needs a ruler with two heads," he said. "He needs compassion for 95 per cent of the people, and an iron fist for the other five per cent – the terrorists, al-Qaeda and corrupt officials."

Ali’s great grandfather ruled from 1880 to 1901, massacring tens of thousands on the battlefield, while executing and torturing hundreds more who he suspected of dissent. While he once enslaved an entire province, he is still fondly remembered inside Afghanistan as one of the few rulers in the last 250 years to unite the country's tribes.