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The Kandahar warlord who has presidential protection
To the inhabitants of Kandahar City, Ahmed Wali Karzai is a symbol of everything wrong with their home, an emblem of the murky nexus of warlords and criminal syndicates controlling southern Afghanistan's largest city.
In the words of some residents, the half-brother of Afghanistan's president is accused of being a "warlord, a terrorist", a narcotics trafficker, and a contract monopolist. Others won't even mention his name. "I can't tell you anything about this. I'm too scared. Someone might kill me," one resident said.
Pressure on President Hamid Karzai to sack his brother from the provincial council he chairs has led nowhere. Now, as military operations get under way in Kandahar's rural districts–the "cornerstone" of Nato's counterinsurgency campaign–NATO officials hope that they can co-opt Ahmed Wali and the handful of powerbrokers dominating the political landscape here.