Assef

Assef is a villain from Khaled Hosseini's novel, The Kite Runner. A violent sociopath, he takes pleasure in abusing, brutalizing and killing people. He is also a bigot who admires Adolf Hitler.

As a child, he rapes Hasan, a member of the Hazara minority whom he looks down on. As an adult, he becomes a high-ranking member of the Taliban, where he takes small children from orphanages and sexually abuses them.

Personality
As a child, Assef is a bully who terrorizes other children, especially those of the Hazara minority. He comes from a wealthy family, with a politically connected father who gets him out of trouble. As an adult, he uses those connections to become a high-ranking member of the Taliban - not out of any particular religious devotion, but simply as a way to have power over other people and commit acts of cruelty and violence.

He takes sadistic pleasure in hurting people, and is especially keen on sexual violence, raping those weaker than him to keep them under his control. He is also a bigot who sees the Hazara minority as inferior, and wants to exterminate them, much as his hero Adolf Hitler had tried to do the German Jews.

Synopsis
Assef first appears with his companions to taunt and bully Amir and Hassan, who were walking down the street. He often questions their friendship, as he tried to mock Hassan with the idea that "he is really just a servant to Amir".

After Amir and Hassan won the kite-fighting competition, Hassan got lost and ended up in an alley where he was cornered by Assef and his friends. Unwilling to surrender the blue kite that he had gotten, Assef proceeded to "teach him a lesson" with the help of his friends by raping him. Amir witnessed the whole thing, ran away, and went into silence by ignoring Hassan's existence.

One night at a party, Hassan attended the party where he socialized with the adults and had a fun time at the expense of Amir's misery. When Amir and part of his family had to relocate to avoid terrorists, it was revealed that one of Assef's closest friends, Kamal, was raped by Assef.

Decades later, Assef joins the Taliban and was responsible for numerous deaths that had happened in the region as a result of the Taliban's conquest. After Hassan was killed by the Taliban, Assef kidnapped his son, Sohrab, and kept him as a sex slave.

When Assef first appears, he stones a man to death for no resaon. When Amir confronts Assef and demands he release Sohrab, Assef refuses, which results in a physical altercation. Ultimately, Assef loses the fight, and Sohrab throws a ball bearing into his eye, blinding him and giving Sohrab and Amir a chance to escape.