Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s younger brother, the government’s key powerbroker in the south of the country, was assassinated yesterday, depriving NATO of a vital, if controversial, ally.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for killing Ahmed Wali Karzai in his own home, while the Kandahar provincial police chief said he was shot dead by the long-serving commander of his family’s personal protection force.
The half-brother of the Afghan leader was for years a deeply controversial figure, dogged by allegations of unsavory links to Afghanistan’s lucrative opium trade and private security firms, but his killing raises disturbing questions about possible infiltration among those closest to the Karzai family and it is also a severe blow to NATO and the Afghan leadership in Kandahar, the heartland of the Taliban insurgency.
The incident comes as NATO troops start withdrawing from the country and Western nations search for a political solution after a decade of war.
Kandahar police chief Abdul Razeq identified the assassin as Sardar Mohammed, the commander of a force of 200 bodyguards who had provided security for the younger Karzai’s family for seven years. Razeq said Mohammed had for seven years been in charge of security in the upmarket neighborhood of Bala Karz in Kandahar, where Karzai’s family lived.
He said Mohammed showed a letter to bodyguards at the house saying he had “urgent” business with Karzai, head of the Kandahar provincial council, and was ushered into his study alone.
“Moments later, the bodyguards hear the sound of gunshots and when they enter the room they find Ahmed Wali Karzai shot in the head and chest, and in a pool of blood,” Razeq said.
“The bodyguards riddled Sardar with bullets. Ahmed Wali Karzai died on the spot,” he said, adding that only the assassin and his victim died in the attack.
The police chief and an official at the hospital where Karzai’s body was taken both said he had been shot in the head and chest.
A senior official with Afghanistan’s spy agency, the National Directorate for Security (NDS), confirmed the account of the killing by Mohammed, who he said was an elder in Karzai’s home village.
“They were meeting alone in a room,” said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity. “Sardar takes off his pistol and shoots him twice in the head. He was hit in the head. The bodyguards rushed to the room and shot Sardar [dead].”
Describing the gunman as in “his late 30s or early 40s,” he added: “Wali knew him from a long time ago.”
The assassination came just before the Afghan leader received French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
Interior ministry spokesman Seddiq Seddiqi said: “One of the very important figures in Afghanistan has been martyred. We condemn this attack.”
Kandahar governor Tooryalai Wesa said the assassin was a “trusted guy.”
“Every time Hamid Karzai and Qayoum Karzai [his brother] would come to Kandahar for a family visit, all the security responsibility would be given to Sardar Mohammed,” he said.
Razeq said Mohammed’s personal bodyguards were arrested after the attack and security was ramped up in Kandahar, with roads around Karzai’s house blocked.
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