Karzai brother: Drug baron, CIA man or Afghan hero?
Category :
World |
Posted Date :
13/07/2011
KABUL: Ahmed Wali Karzai, the Afghan president's assassinated younger brother, was either a drugs baron, a CIA agent or a fierce defender of the Afghan people, depending on who you listen to.
What is beyond dispute is that he was a controversial figure and a warlord who commanded tremendous power over Kandahar, one of the most restive provinces of the war-torn country and the spiritual home of the Taliban.
The son of a well-to-do political family from an influential Pashtun tribe, the Popalzai, he headed the provincial council in Kandahar for seven years, where he was widely considered to control all commercial and political dealings. His powerful role necessitated regular talks with American forces waging a counterinsurgency in the key Taliban battleground.
But leaked cables released last year revealed true US feelings about the president's half-brother, who was long dogged by claims of unsavoury links with the lucrative opium trade and private security firms.
After one meeting with US envoy Frank Ruggiero in September 2009, the American diplomat said of Karzai, known by the acronym "AWK": "While we must deal with AWK as the head of the provincial council, he is widely understood to be corrupt and a narcotics trafficker."
He always flamboyantly denied the mass of allegations against him, including that he ran private militias and claimed he escaped an assassination attempt in 2009. He wasn't to be so lucky on Tuesday, when he was killed in his own home.
After the WikiLeaks debacle he told Tolo television: "Dear brother! First of all, I've no security company... If one is able to show one single contract under my name, I'll take all responsibility for all against myself." Kandahar is a make-or-break southern battleground in the fight to defeat insurgency, and US has thousands of troops in the area trying to wrest initiative from the Taliban and bolster the Afghan government.
The New York Times reported in 2009 that the younger Karzai had been on the CIA payroll for most of the previous eight years for services that included fielding recruits for an Afghan paramilitary operating under CIA direction.
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