.Killing of Karzai’s brother shakes US
Ahmed Wali Karzai, a powerful brother of the Afghan president, has been shot dead by a long-serving bodyguard, depriving the US of a linchpin in its strategy for containing the Taliban as Nato troops withdraw.
The assassin opened fire at point blank range in Mr Karzai’s heavily-fortified compound in the southern city of Kandahar on Tuesday before himself being gunned down by bodyguards, officials said.
The killing sent shockwaves through Kabul and Washington, underscoring the vulnerability of President Hamid Karzai’s inner circle and raising fears that a power struggle will erupt in the south, the focal point of the insurgency.
“My younger brother was martyred in his house today,” Mr Karzai told a joint news conference with Nicolas Sarkozy, his visiting French counterpart, in Kabul. “This is the life of all Afghan people, I hope these miseries which every Afghan family faces will one day end.”
The Taliban said it had arranged the killing, though the movement has often made baseless claims and some in Kandahar questioned whether the gunman may have been acting for personal motives.
Afghan officials named the killer as Sardar Mohammad, saying he had known Ahmed Wali for at least a decade and run his security team. “The man carried his pistol through the security checks to Wali Karzai’s room. As soon as Wali Karzai came out of the bathroom, he opened fire and shot him in the head and chest,” said General Abdul Raziq, Kandahar police chief.
A controversial and polarising figure, Ahmed Wali used his connection to the president and position as chief of Kandahar’s provincial council to emerge as one of the most influential power-brokers in the region, the birthplace of the Taliban.
Ahmed Wali’s death robs President Karzai of a pillar of the patronage system he used to project influence at a time when US forces are preparing to start thinning out in the south under plans by Barack Obama, the US president, to withdraw 33,000 troops by next September.
“The killing of Ahmed Wali Karzai is a blow to President Karzai’s spine,” said Besmullah Afghanmal, a member of the upper house of parliament from Kandahar. “This is the beginning of the disaster in Afghanistan.”
Kandahar, regarded as a pivotal battleground in the west’s decade-long campaign against the Taliban, hosted an influx of thousands of US forces deployed in the Obama administration’s troop surge last year.
Aware of his divisive influence, senior US military officials had explored ways to try to oust Ahmed Wali ahead of the surge. But he proved impossible to dislodge, and the US has been forced to accept that his network forms an important bulwark against the Taliban.
Hillary Clinton, US secretary of state, called President Hamid Karzai to commiserate with him over his brother’s killing. Mrs Clinton condemned the murder “in the strongest terms” and pledged continued US support.
Scores of elders would gather at his house – surrounded by checkpoints and blast walls – each day to petition for his help in settling grievances. “Karzai was a stalwart defender of the nation he was trying to rebuild and fought hard to root out terrorists in Afghanistan,” said a US official. “He wasn’t perfect, but in a place like Afghanistan, you’re not going to find too many Boy Scouts. His death is a stark reminder of the dangers that his country faces.”
Unassuming in person, Ahmed Wali denied stories in US media that he was involved in heroin trafficking. The New York Times reported that he was on the payroll of the Central Intelligence Agency, which used him to raise a private militia.
However, he could not shake his reputation as the don of a “shadow government” of narco-traffickers, gun-runners and militia bosses who used profits from lucrative Nato logistics contracts to hijack the state.
Opponents say his network’s attempts to monopolise power in the province on behalf of the Popalzai, a tribe within the ethnic Pashtun community, fuelled sympathy for the insurgents among rival groups, and earned him many enemies. He had survived several assassination attempts.
Ahmed Wali’s influence far outstripped that of Tooryalai Wesa, the western-backed governor of Kandahar Province, who the US had been hoping would emerge as a symbol of good governance to rally the population against the Taliban.
That effort has been undermined by an aggressive Taliban campaign to assassinate government officials. In April, Kandahar’s police chief was killed by a suicide bomber. US officials were yesterday trying to discern how Ahmed Wali’s death might change the balance of power in the south, their task complicated by the fact that he has no clear successor.
FT
Hail the Taliban.
The assassin opened fire at point blank range in Mr Karzai’s heavily-fortified compound in the southern city of Kandahar on Tuesday before himself being gunned down by bodyguards, officials said.
The killing sent shockwaves through Kabul and Washington, underscoring the vulnerability of President Hamid Karzai’s inner circle and raising fears that a power struggle will erupt in the south, the focal point of the insurgency.
“My younger brother was martyred in his house today,” Mr Karzai told a joint news conference with Nicolas Sarkozy, his visiting French counterpart, in Kabul. “This is the life of all Afghan people, I hope these miseries which every Afghan family faces will one day end.”
The Taliban said it had arranged the killing, though the movement has often made baseless claims and some in Kandahar questioned whether the gunman may have been acting for personal motives.
Afghan officials named the killer as Sardar Mohammad, saying he had known Ahmed Wali for at least a decade and run his security team. “The man carried his pistol through the security checks to Wali Karzai’s room. As soon as Wali Karzai came out of the bathroom, he opened fire and shot him in the head and chest,” said General Abdul Raziq, Kandahar police chief.
A controversial and polarising figure, Ahmed Wali used his connection to the president and position as chief of Kandahar’s provincial council to emerge as one of the most influential power-brokers in the region, the birthplace of the Taliban.
Ahmed Wali’s death robs President Karzai of a pillar of the patronage system he used to project influence at a time when US forces are preparing to start thinning out in the south under plans by Barack Obama, the US president, to withdraw 33,000 troops by next September.
“The killing of Ahmed Wali Karzai is a blow to President Karzai’s spine,” said Besmullah Afghanmal, a member of the upper house of parliament from Kandahar. “This is the beginning of the disaster in Afghanistan.”
Kandahar, regarded as a pivotal battleground in the west’s decade-long campaign against the Taliban, hosted an influx of thousands of US forces deployed in the Obama administration’s troop surge last year.
Aware of his divisive influence, senior US military officials had explored ways to try to oust Ahmed Wali ahead of the surge. But he proved impossible to dislodge, and the US has been forced to accept that his network forms an important bulwark against the Taliban.
Hillary Clinton, US secretary of state, called President Hamid Karzai to commiserate with him over his brother’s killing. Mrs Clinton condemned the murder “in the strongest terms” and pledged continued US support.
Scores of elders would gather at his house – surrounded by checkpoints and blast walls – each day to petition for his help in settling grievances. “Karzai was a stalwart defender of the nation he was trying to rebuild and fought hard to root out terrorists in Afghanistan,” said a US official. “He wasn’t perfect, but in a place like Afghanistan, you’re not going to find too many Boy Scouts. His death is a stark reminder of the dangers that his country faces.”
Unassuming in person, Ahmed Wali denied stories in US media that he was involved in heroin trafficking. The New York Times reported that he was on the payroll of the Central Intelligence Agency, which used him to raise a private militia.
However, he could not shake his reputation as the don of a “shadow government” of narco-traffickers, gun-runners and militia bosses who used profits from lucrative Nato logistics contracts to hijack the state.
Opponents say his network’s attempts to monopolise power in the province on behalf of the Popalzai, a tribe within the ethnic Pashtun community, fuelled sympathy for the insurgents among rival groups, and earned him many enemies. He had survived several assassination attempts.
Ahmed Wali’s influence far outstripped that of Tooryalai Wesa, the western-backed governor of Kandahar Province, who the US had been hoping would emerge as a symbol of good governance to rally the population against the Taliban.
That effort has been undermined by an aggressive Taliban campaign to assassinate government officials. In April, Kandahar’s police chief was killed by a suicide bomber. US officials were yesterday trying to discern how Ahmed Wali’s death might change the balance of power in the south, their task complicated by the fact that he has no clear successor.
FT
Hail the Taliban.
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