IN: Ahmad Shah Durrani (c. 1722 - 16 October 1772) (Pashto: Hmd shh drny), also known as Ahmad Khan Abdali (Hmd khn bdly), was the founder of the Durrani Empire and is regarded as the founder of the modern state of Afghanistan. He began his career by enlisting as a young soldier in the military of the Afsharid kingdom and quickly rose to become a commander of the Abdali Regiment, a cavalry of four thousand Abdali Pashtun soldiers. After the assassination of Nader Shah Afshar in 1747, Ahmad Shah Durrani was chosen as King of Afghanistan.

Durrani was born in or about 1722 to Mohammad Zaman Khan, chief of the Abdali tribe and Governor of Herat, and Zarghuna Alakozai. There has been some debate about Durrani's exact place of birth. Most believe that he was born in Herat, Afghanistan. He was born as Ahmed Khan. Abdali's father suffered "Persian captivity for many years" at Kirman before being released from prison in 1715. As a refugee, he "made his way to India" and joined his kinsmen at Multan. After he raised his family there, he was recognized as the "scion of hereditary Sadozai chiefs". It is believed that Zaman Khan returned to Afghanistan to fight the Persians and his Afghan rivals, but left one of his wives at Multan because she was "in the family way". So other sources believe that, Abdali was born at Multan in 1722, after which she returned to Afghanistan to reunite with her husband. He lost his father during his infancy. Durrani's forefathers were Sadozais but his mother was from the Alakozai tribe. In June 1729, the Abdali forces under Zulfiqar had surrendered to Nader Shah Afshar, the rising new ruler of Persia. However, they soon began a rebellion and took over Herat as well as Mashad. In July 1730, he defeated Ibrahim Khan, a military commander and brother of Nader Shah. This prompted Nader Shah to retake Mashad and also intervene in the power struggle of Harat. By July 1731, Zulfiqar returned to his capital Farah where he had been serving as the governor since 1726. A year later Nadir's brother Ibrahim Khan took control of Farah. During this time Zulfiqar and the young Durrani fled to Kandahar where they took refuge with the Ghiljis. They were later made political prisoners by Hussain Hotak, the Ghilji ruler of the Kandahar region. Nader Shah had been enlisting the Abdalis in his army since around 1729. After conquering Kandahar in 1738, Durrani and his brother Zulfiqar were freed and provided with leading careers in Nader Shah's administration. Zulfiqar was made Governor of Mazandaran while Durrani remained working as Nader Shah's personal attendant. The Ghiljis, who are originally from the territories east of the Kandahar region, were expelled from Kandahar in order to resettle the Abdalis along with some Qizilbash and other Persians. Durrani proved himself in Nader Shah's service and was promoted from a personal attendant (yasawal) to command the Abdali Regiment, a cavalry of four thousand soldiers and officers. The Abdali Regiment was part of Nader Shah's military during his invasion of the Mughal Empire in 1738. Popular history has it that the Shah could see the talent in his young commander. Later on, according to Pashtun legend, it is said that in Delhi Nader Shah summoned Durrani, and said, "Come forward Ahmad Abdali. Remember Ahmad Khan Abdali, that after me the Kingship will pass on to you. Nader Shah recruited him because of his "impressive personality and valour" also because of his "loyalty to the Persian monarch".
QUESTION: When did he join the military?
IN: Piers Morgan was born Piers Stefan O'Meara on 30 March 1965 in Newick, Sussex, England, to Vincent Eamonn O'Meara, an Irish-born dentist, originally from County Offaly, and Gabrielle Georgina Sybille (nee Oliver). He took his stepfather's surname and became known as Piers Stefan Pughe-Morgan. He attended the independent school Cumnor House from the ages of seven to thirteen, and then Chailey School, a comprehensive secondary school in Chailey, near Lewes, East Sussex, followed by Priory School for sixth form. Morgan studied journalism at Harlow College.

As editor of the Daily Mirror, in 1996 Morgan was forced to apologise on television for the headline (rendered in upper case) "Achtung Surrender! For You Fritz Ze Euro Championship Is Over" on 25 June 1996, a day before England met Germany in a semi-final of the Euro '96 football championships. A PS16 million package of investment in the title was rolled out from January, including the dropping of "Daily" from the masthead in February, which was later reversed. Roy Greenslade wrote in August 1999 that Morgan's editorship "has made a huge difference: his enormous enthusiasm, determination and focus is a major plus". Morgan was the subject of an investigation in 2000 after Suzy Jagger wrote an article for The Daily Telegraph revealing that he had bought PS20,000 worth of shares in the computer company Viglen soon before the Mirror 's "City Slickers" column tipped Viglen as a good buy. Morgan was found by the Press Complaints Commission to have breached the Code of Conduct on financial journalism, but kept his job. The "City Slickers" columnists, Anil Bhoyrul and James Hipwell, were both found to have committed further breaches of the Code and were sacked before the inquiry concluded. Further enquiry by the Department of Trade and Industry in 2004 cleared Morgan of any charges. On 7 December 2005, Bhoyrul and Hipwell were convicted of conspiracy to breach the Financial Services Act. During the trial it emerged that Morgan had bought PS67,000 worth of Viglen shares, emptying his bank account and investing under his (first) wife's name, too. The Mirror attempted to move mid-market in 2002, claiming to eschew the more trivial stories of show-business and gossip. Morgan rehired John Pilger, who had been sacked in 1985 early in Robert Maxwell's ownership of the Mirror titles. In the wake of the Abu Ghraib torture scandal, Morgan was fired as Editor of the Daily Mirror "with immediate effect" on 14 May 2004, after refusing to apologise to Sly Bailey, then head of Trinity Mirror, for authorising the newspaper's publication of photographs which had been shown to be false. These were alleged to show Iraqi prisoners being abused by British Army soldiers from the Queen's Lancashire Regiment. When, within days the photographs were shown to be crude fakes, under the headline "SORRY..WE WERE HOAXED", the Mirror responded that it had fallen victim to a "calculated and malicious hoax" and apologised for the publication of the photographs. However, Morgan has refused to admit that the photographs were faked, and has stated that the abuse shown in the photographs is similar to the sort of abuse which was happening in the British Army in Iraq at the time.
QUESTION:
Was he guilty?