AFGHAN BOILER: Ahmed Wali Karzai’s killer had been a Taliban foe & US ally!

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By Joshua Partlow, Washington Post / Friday, July 15, 3:24 AM.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — The man who murdered President Hamid Karzai’s half brother spent years as an ally of the United States in the war against the Taliban.

The killer, Sardar Mohammad, a police commander, met on several occasions with U.S. and British military officials, shared intelligence with Americans and played a part in Afghan arrests of scores of Taliban fighters, according to three relatives interviewed on Thursday in his home near Kandahar.

The reasons behind the dramatic switch that turned the 35-year-old officer against Ahmed Wali Karzai, perhaps the most powerful figure in southern Afghanistan, are still not understood. But one of Karzai’s brothers and a senior Afghan official said they were now convinced that the Taliban somehow won Mohammad’s allegiance in recent months and convinced him to carry out an assassination on the group’s behalf.

The official said that investigators are trying to determine whether Mohammad was a long-term Taliban sleeper agent or just recently joined the insurgents. A NATO spokesman in Afghanistan referred questions about Karzai’s killing to Afghan authorities. 

Mahmood Karzai, one of the president’s brothers, said the family has learned since the assassination that Mohammad traveled to the Pakistani city of Quetta within the past three months to meet with Taliban insurgents. He had also acted erratically in recent weeks, sleeping poorly, changing houses at night, acting suspiciously toward his men and demanding to know who they were talking to on their phones.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia-pacific/ahmed-wali-karzais-killer-had-been-a-taliban-foe/2011/07/14/gIQAdv3mEI_story.html

AFGHAN BOILER: Why Ahmed Wali Karzai Was a Target!

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Jul 12, 2011 8:44 AM EDT.

By Sami Yousufjai & Ron Moreau / http://www.thedailybeast.com.

Many Afghans and American militarymen believed it was only a matter of time before he would be killed. Their predictions came true on Tuesday morning when Ahmed Wali Karzai, the half brother of the Afghan president and by far the most powerful man in southern Afghanistan, was gunned down by one of his own bodyguards inside his heavily fortified home in Kandahar City. For nearly the past decade he had acted as the region’s ultimate powerbroker. His death will doubtlessly unleash a power struggle among government officials, police and military officers, narcotics smugglers and tribal chieftains who kicked back a large share of their action made possible by his patronage.

His death could bring further turmoil to the strategic region. Without his firm hand to keep all those competing interests in check, southern Afghanistan could become less stable at a time when the U.S. military was confident that its surge forces had seriously weakened the insurgency in the Taliban’s strategic heartland. Over the past 18 months American forces had killed and captured thousands of insurgents, pushing them far away from the key populated areas they had long occupied. Karzai had long been seen as a crucial U.S. ally in the region. In 2009 it was widely reported that he had been on the CIA’s payroll for years. Not only had he provided a degree of stability through his vast patronage politics, the private militia forces that he had raised for the CIA took a heavy toll on the Taliban.

But U.S. militarymen also saw him as a liability. Although never proven, Karzai, 50, was widely accused of being at the center of the southern region’s multi-billion dollar narcotics industry, a charge he vehemently denied. His brother, President Hamid Karzai, also staunchly defended his brother’s innocence. Of late AWK, as the American militarymen called him, had become almost too authoritarian and powerful for his own good. He heavily favored his own tribe, the Popalzai, to the detriment of other clans who bitterly resented his partiality. This favoritism coupled with the fact that he sat atop of a pyramid of corruption ranging from shady real estate deals, to kickbacks on construction contracts, and getting his fair share of the shakedowns of truckers and buses at police posts and bureaucratic bribes certainly helped Taliban recruiters. “He was using all his power to get money from others, and even caused us to stop a road construction project,” says one Afghan aid official who declines to be quoted because of the sensitivity of his comment. “He had guns and money and was the king of Kandahar.” In the end, he may have overplayed his hand. There clearly was growing resentment toward him in the city and province. “There’s an undercurrent of anti-AWK sentiment,” said one American officer in the region last month. “Within six months you may hear a loud ‘pop’ in the city.”

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http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/07/12/ahmed-wali-karzai-killed-why-hamid-karzai-s-half-brother-was-a-target.html

AFGHAN BOILER: Hamid Karzai’s brother killed by Body Guard - Afghan official!

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• July 12, 2011 
• AFP 
• KANDAHAR / DC.

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Photo Courtesy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmad_Wali_Karzai

Ahmed Wali Karzai, the younger brother of Afghan president Hamid Karzai and a hugely powerful if controversial figure in southern Afghanistan, was assassinated at his home on Tuesday, officials said.

The killing of his chief local powerbroker will be a huge loss for President Hamid Karzai in Kandahar, the heartland of the Taliban insurgency as NATO troops rush to start withdrawing combat troops after a decade of war.

Initial details were sketchy, with a family friend telling AFP on condition of anonymity that he was killed by a bodyguard while entertaining guests at home and an Afghan intelligence official saying he was shot dead by a guest.

"We can confirm he has been martyred," Kandahar provincial government spokesman Zalmay Ayubi told AFP, providing no further details.

A health official, also speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information, said Wali Karzai had been shot dead.

"He was shot dead at his house by one of the visiting guests not by a body guard, at around 11:30 am (0700 GMT)," said an official at Afghanistan's intelligence agency, the National Directorate of Security.

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http://www.deccanchronicle.com/channels/world/asia/younger-brother-afghan-president-killed-officials-345