Former Afghan King Mohammad Zahir Shah died today at the age of 92.
President Hamid Karzai declared three days of mourning and ordered flags to be flown at half mast for the man heralded as "father of the nation" after he returned from 29 years of exile in 2002 to live out his last years as an ordinary citizen.
"With paramount grief, I would like to inform my countrymen that . . . Mohammad Zahir Shah has bid farewell to this mortal world," President Hamid Karzai said.
Mr Karzai described Mr Shah, who died in his bed after months of illness, as the founder of Afghan democracy and a symbol of national unity.
The former king's reign is remembered as one of the most tranquil periods of Afghanistan's turbulent history. Mr Shah ruled Afghanistan from 1933 until he was deposed by his cousin in 1973.
Since then Afghanistan has seen a succession of coups, wars and foreign military interventions that cost millions of lives and devastated towns, cities and villages.
Mr Shah came from a long line of ethnic Pashtun rulers and was the last monarch of a dynasty established in 1747.