Afghan president's brother, Ahmad Wali Karzai, killed

Ahmad Wali Karzai in April talking about death threats against him in the BBC documentary,

Afghanistan: The Unknown Country

The half-brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai has been assassinated in Kandahar, officials say.

Ahmad Wali Karzai, a leading power broker in the country's south, was shot dead at his home in a blow to Nato's battle against the Taliban in the area.

He was shot twice by his long-time head of security Sardar Mohammed, who was himself killed almost immediately.

The Taliban said they carried out the attack, calling it one of their top achievements in 10 years of war.
Sardar Mohammed's motives remain unclear, but the killing will raise questions about securing Afghanistan's top officials.
 
Previous assassination attempts:
Ahmad Wali Karzai's killing is the latest and most high-profile in a series of assassinations of senior politicians and security commanders across the country.

 

Analysis

Lyse Doucet BBC News

The last time I saw Ahmad Wali Karzai in his heavily protected compound, he said the war against the Taliban in Kandahar was being won. He wanted foreign troops to stay the course - even though his brother, the president, didn't.

The man they called Mr Kandahar was asked to solve every problem from tackling Taliban strongholds to solving the personal problem of anyone who made it to his door. President Karzai relied on him to consolidate his tribal and political sway in the restive south - he must now be deeply worried.

Nato officials had often spoken of putting Ahmad Wali Karzai "on notice" over allegations of drug deals, and corruption. He challenged everyone to prove it.

There's an old Afghan saying "whoever controls Kandahar, controls Afghanistan". Ahmad Wali Karzai was the lynchpin in so many areas, his death now leaves a dangerous vaccum.

The Afghan president said the assassination reflected the suffering of all Afghan people.

"This is the way of life for the people of Afghanistan," said Mr Karzai.

"The homes of all Afghans feel this pain. Our hope is this (violence) will come to an end and peace and happiness come to our homes and will come to rule in our country."

Critics said Ahmad Wali Karzai was a warlord mired in corruption who was openly involved in the drugs trade and had a personal militia at his disposal.

His supporters saw him as a defender of Pashtun rights. The president repeatedly defended him, denouncing accusations that his brother was involved in criminal activities.

Security was intensified in Kandahar following Tuesday morning's shooting, as the body of Ahmad Wali Karzai, who was born in 1961, was taken to a nearby hospital.

As head of the Kandahar Provincial Council, he was a staunch ally of US and allied forces in Afghanistan, says the BBC's Quentin Sommerville in Kabul, to the extent that they turned a blind eye to accusations he was involved in drug trafficking.

"Despite our worries about Ahmad Wali Karzai, he was someone the US could work with and he kept a lid on things in Kandahar," a US official told the BBC.

 

“Start Quote:

[Ahmad Wali Karzai] was someone the US could work with and he kept a lid on things in Kandahar”

-US official

It is hard to overstate how important he was in the south of Afghanistan and in Nato's efforts to combat the Taliban in their stronghold there, adds our correspondent.

The Commander of the International Security Assistance Force, US General David Petraeus, condemned the assassination, and said ISAF would work with the Afghan government to bring anyone involved to justice.

"President Karzai is working to create a stronger, more secure Afghanistan, and for such a tragic event to happen to someone within his own family is unfathomable," said Gen Pertraeus.

Ahmad Wali Karzai had survived attempts on his life before, most recently in a rocket and machine gun attack in 2009 as his convoy was travelling towards Kabul.

The previous year, he was chairing a meeting in a government building when a bomb-filled fuel tanker exploded close by.

Although Mr Karzai escaped unhurt, six people were killed and 40 wounded in the blast.

He and other officials blamed Taliban militants for the bombing.

In 2003, Mr Karzai's house in Kandahar city was hit by an explosion which he said was caused accidentally when some weapons were being moved.
BBC News

'Afghanistan: France follows US in troop withdrawal' - 23 June 2011

"Our mission will change from combat to support”

President Obama: "America, it is time to focus on nation-building at home"

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has announced the phased withdrawal of its 4,000 soldiers serving in Afghanistan.

A statement said the French would follow the timetable of US withdrawals announced by President Barack Obama.

Mr Obama said 10,000 US troops would pull out this year, with another 23,000 leaving by the end of September 2012.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai welcomed the move, but the Taliban dismissed it as "symbolic" and vowed to continue fighting until all foreign forces left.

At least 68,000 US troops will remain in the country after the 33,000 have been withdrawn, but they are scheduled to leave by 2013, provided that Afghan forces are ready to take over security.

However the US reductions just announced are larger and faster than military commanders had advised.  They told the president that the recent security gains were fragile and reversible, and had urged him to keep troop numbers high until 2013.

Correspondents say the enormous cost of the deployment - currently more than $2bn (£1.25bn) a week - has attracted criticism from Congressional leaders, while the public are weary of a war that seems to have no end and has left at least 1,500 personnel dead and 12,000 wounded.

There have also been changes on the ground, notably the killing in May of al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden by US forces in Pakistan.
 
'Tide of war'
Mr Sarkozy's announcement came shortly after Mr Obama's, and followed a telephone discussion between the two leaders on Wednesday, said the Elysee Palace - the presidential office - in a statement.

The withdrawal of the approximately 4,000 serving French troops would be progressive and would take place "in a proportional manner and in a timeframe similar to the pullback of the American reinforcements", it said, beginning in the coming months.

Analysis

Christian Fraser BBC News, Paris

President Sarkozy has pointed to the progress made in Afghanistan this past year as the reason for France's decision to begin a gradual withdrawal.

It will be in a proportional manner, said the Elysee Palace, and in a calendar comparable to the US withdrawal.

France currently has 4,000 men and women operating in areas like Kapisa, the province adjoining Kabul, in the east of the country. But in recent years its special forces have been more closely involved in the fiercest fighting with the Taliban, and this has been one of the deadliest years to date, with nine French soldiers killed.

There are, of course, financial and political considerations here. France is one of the leading nations in the ongoing Nato operations over Libya and Mr Sarkozy is building up to the 2012 presidential election campaign. He has been edging slowly back up in the polls and this will be a popular decision.

The French president "stressed that France shared the American analysis and objectives and that it was happy with President Obama's decision".

Mr Obama's announcement, after a month-long strategy review, outlined the exit of the forces he sent to the country at the end of 2009 as part of a "surge".

In his speech, he said he had set clear objectives for the surge in December 2009 - to refocus on al-Qaeda, to reverse the Taliban's momentum, and train Afghan security forces to defend their own country.

His administration also stated the commitment would not be open-ended and that the withdrawal would begin in July 2011, he added.

"After this initial reduction our troops will continue coming home at a steady pace as Afghan security forces move into the lead. Our mission will change from combat to support."

The BBC's Paul Adams in Washington says the speech was all about reassuring the American public that the "tide of war" was receding.

Six thousand Americans have died in Iraq and Afghanistan and $1 trillion has been spent.

The initial withdrawal is expected to happen in two phases, with 5,000 troops coming home in coming months and another 5,000 by the end of the year.

The remainder of the surge reinforcements - 20,000 combat troops and an 3,000 deployed to support the operation - will be out by the end of September 2012, in time for the US presidential election.

Our correspondent says this is a quicker pace than most analysts predicted, and suggests the president does not feel he needs to leave the bulk of the surge force in place for another fighting season.

 

"This is a moment when President Obama can do what was unthinkable two years ago. He can defy the Pentagon. Early in his presidency it would have been too risky to ignore military advice”

Mark Mardell BBC North America editor

The second largest contributor to the international force in Afghanistan is the UK, which has more than 10,000 soldiers including special forces.

It has pledged to pull back forces by 2015 - and earlier if conditions allow.

US administration officials told the New York Times that the US military commander in Afghanistan, Gen David Petraeus, had not endorsed Mr Obama's decision. He recommended limiting initial withdrawals and leaving in place as many combat forces for as long as possible, they said.

Outgoing Defence Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reluctantly accepted the reductions, the officials added.

Serious doubts remain about whether Afghan forces will be up to the task.

But President Karzai welcomed Mr Obama's announcement as "a good step for their benefit and the people of Afghanistan".

"I want the people of Afghanistan to be safe in their country with their own capable means," Mr Karzai said.
 
There was a more ambivalent response from senior Afghan security officials who spoke to the BBC.

 

They stressed that neither the army nor police were yet capable of handling security alone, citing problems of enemy infiltration, drug addiction, and high desertion rates.

An Afghan official with the country's National Security Council said he hoped the withdrawal would take place progressively, and not in one fell swoop.

"We look for a long-term commitment from the United States and the international community, one that will not allow Afghanistan to fall back to the pre-civil war and Taliban days," the official, who did not want to be named, told the BBC.

"We want to remind everyone, history shows that if you turn your [back] on Afghanistan, it will have negative consequences for you."

But a farmer in a volatile district in the north-eastern province of Kundoz told the BBC: "As far as I am concerned, the American forces didn't make a difference to me and my village. So if they leave it won't affect me.

"They supported militias, commanders who kill, rape and loot here. They are hated for that at my village.''

BBC News 

Afghanistan's Karzai: US 'in peace talks with Taliban' - by Paul Wood - 18 June 2011

 

The comments came hours before an attack on a police station, for which the Taliban claimed responsibility.

The US is engaged in talks with the Taliban, Afghan President Hamid Karzai has said, in the first high-level confirmation of US involvement.

Mr Karzai said that "foreign military and especially the US itself" were involved in peace talks with the group.
Hours later, suicide bombers attacked a Kabul police station, killing two.

Earlier this month, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said there could be political talks with the Taliban by the end of this year.

The US is due to start withdrawing its 97,000 troops from Afghanistan in July.

It aims to gradually hand over all security operations to Afghan security forces by 2014.
 
Summer of fighting:
"In the course of this year, there have been peace talks with the Taliban and our own countrymen," Mr Karzai told a Kabul news conference on Saturday.

"Peace talks have started with them already and it is going well. Foreign militaries, especially the United States of America, are going ahead with these negotiations."

 

Analysis

Paul Wood BBC News, Kabul

It's always been assumed that the US is reaching out directly to the Taliban, but this is the first high-level official confirmation.

The exact identity of the Americans' negotiating partner is not known whether they are talking to a go-between or to somebody with authority.

Neither is it known what is on the table: The assumption is that these are talks about talks rather than something more substantive.

No one should expect quick results from whatever contacts may be taking place. The prediction from all sides - Nato, the Afghan government and the Taliban itself - is for another summer of hard fighting ahead, and probably many more summers after that.

He gave no details as to whether the discussions involved Taliban officials with US authorities, or a go-between.

Shortly after the announcement, at least two suicide bombers attacked a police station near the financial ministry in the Afghan capital. The Taliban has claimed responsibility.

Mohammad Ayub Salangi, Kabul's police chief, told the BBC two police officers had been killed in the attack, which was ongoing.

''A group of suicide attackers got inside police district one," he said. "We have surrounded the area.''

An interior ministry spokesman said there were four attackers, one of whom blew himself up, two of whom were killed by police, while a fourth was still fighting.

Finance ministry employees said the ministry was under lockdown.

"We can hear sporadic gunshots," one employee told the BBC. "Guards at the front of the ministry have also fired at attackers who wanted to get inside the ministry."

Meanwhile, insurgents attacked two convoys supplying Nato troops in the eastern province of Ghazni, police said: Four Afghan security guards escorting the trucks were reportedly killed by roadside bombs.
 
Sanctions list split:
The Taliban's official position regarding peace talks is that it will only negotiate once international forces leave Afghanistan, and that it will only talk to the Afghan government.

Click to play

Colonel Richard Kemp: "There is no prospect for successful peace talks with the Taliban"

Diplomats have previously spoken of preliminary talks being held by both sides in the continuing conflict.
The US has yet to comment on Mr Karzai's statement.

The UK said it supported "Afghan-led efforts to reconcile and reintegrate members of the insurgency who are prepared to renounce violence, cut links with terrorist groups, and accept the constitution".

"In view of the death of Osama Bin Laden it is time for the Taliban/insurgency to positively engage in the political process," said a statement from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

Colonel Richard Kemp, a former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, said there was currently no prospect for successful peace talks with Taliban.

"The only possibility that could happen is if they as a movement are defeated and there's no prospect of that happening in the near future."

He said the objective of international forces in Afghanistan should be to encourage malleable elements of the Taliban to split away from the hard-core leadership of Mullah Mohammad Omar, thereby weakening the group.

On Friday, the UN split a sanctions blacklist for the Taliban and al-Qaeda, to encourage the Taliban to join reconciliation efforts.

Before now, both organisations have been handled by the same UN sanctions committee.

The UN Security Council said it was sending a signal to the Taliban that now is the time to join the political process.

The US Ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, said in a statement that the move sent "a clear message to the Taliban that there is a future for those who separate from al-Qaeda, renounce violence and abide by the Afghan constitution".

The Taliban ruled Afghanistan before being driven from power by US-backed forces in 2001.
It had sheltered al-Qaeda and its leader Osama Bin Laden.
BBC News