Akbar Ayazi is an Associate Director of Broadcasting who oversees RFE/RL's Afghanistan, and Pakistan broadcast services.
Prior to joining RFE/RL, Akbar was a broadcaster for Afghan National Radio and TV before immigrating to the United States during the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan in 1980. In the U.S. he worked as a broadcaster in the Afghan Service of the Voice of America (VOA).
In 1986, he became the executive producer of the West and South Asia division of VOA where he worked until 2002. He spent the next three years as the director of the Pashto Broadcast to Afghanistan, joining RFE/RL in 2005.
Akbar graduated from Kabul University in 1976 with a degree in Economics and Industrial Management. He also received a Diploma in Management Techniques from Nehru University in New Delhi.
Akbar’s analysis has been featured on CNN, Al-Jazeera, and in news outlets across Europe and Asia. In August 2009, Akbar moderated the first ever
Afghan presidential debate to feature a sitting president (Hamid Karzai).