Not many people in Washington or London had ever heard of Ghulam Haider Hamidi, but the Taliban were scared to death of him. Hamidi was the mayor of Kandahar City and a suicide bomber killed him last month near his downtown office.

The mayor was doing what he did every day in the violent and chaotic city he loved – settling disputes peacefully and building a future for the nearly 1m people who live there. The insurgents and criminals who were his sworn enemies viewed Hamidi’s peacemaking as the biggest threat to their cynical ambitions. He was a marked man.

To call Hamidi an unlikely hero would be an understatement. Short, wiry, occasionally disorganised, his frenetic style could be frustrating for those of us who were his American civilian advisers. Just tracking his many initiatives was a chore – made even harder when he burst into his unique rendition of English. But it was clear to me that the mayor had a vision for this strategic city, and that he was one of the most fearless people I had ever met.