March 10, 2011
Cousin of Afghan President Is Killed in NATO Raid
By ALISSA J. RUBIN and JAMES RISEN
KABUL, Afghanistan -- A cousin of Afghanistan's president was killed Wednesday during a night raid by NATO and Afghan forces in which they detained the man's son as a suspected Taliban commander, as well as at least two of the family's bodyguards.
The case brought the delicate issue of civilian casualties into the presidential palace and added to the already tense relationship between the Afghans and the Americans. It also raised questions about whether a member of the extended family of President Hamid Karzai might have Taliban ties, or whether bad intelligence led to a deadly raid on the home of an innocent family.
Either way, the raid raises the prospect of another intense flare-up between NATO and Afghan officials, coming after two other cases of civilian casualties in the past three weeks. Night raids on family compounds, in particular, have long been controversial for their intrusiveness and the civilian casualties associated with them. Startled Afghan men, who commonly keep weapons at home, often react by reaching for their guns and are then shot, often by Special Operations forces.
This raid occurred in the southern province of Kandahar, in the rural village of Karz, the Karzai clan's ancestral home. The man who was killed was Yar Mohammad Karzai, a lifelong resident of the village who was in his early 60s.
On Thursday evening, a NATO spokesman said the force was "aware of conflicting reports about the identities of those involved and has initiated an inquiry to determine the facts." In Washington, spokesmen for the Pentagon and the White House also said they had received conflicting reports about the episode and declined to comment until they received more information.
The death was confirmed by the president's half brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, the chairman of the provincial council in Kandahar. He said the raid was a joint operation by the NATO force -- the International Security Assistance Force -- and the Afghan National Army that had gone awry. "The prime target was not actually him," he said. "It was somebody else. But mistakenly he was killed, and ISAF apologized for that."
President Karzai was informed of his cousin's death on Thursday morning, said Waheed Omar, his spokesman. "This was the result of an irresponsible night raid, and like any other case of civilian casualties, the president was very sorry to hear about it," Mr. Omar said.
He added: "We've called for a stop of the night raids, which often cause a loss of life and are against the culture and the Islamic values of the Afghan people. They can always cause unnecessary and irresponsible action such as what happened last night."
This is the third serious case of civilian casualties in three weeks. Last week, NATO forces mistakenly killed nine boys [1] gathering firewood in Kunar Province, mistaking them for insurgents. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top American commander in Afghanistan, apologized to President Karzai in person for those deaths, but Mr. Karzai called his statement "insufficient." [2] He did accept an apology from Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates a day later.
A routine NATO statement on the events in Karz that was sent to reporters on Thursday morning said that its troops and Afghan security forces "had captured a Taliban leader, killed one armed individual and detained several suspected insurgents during security operations."
The statement said the raid's intended target was a Taliban leader responsible for distributing car bombs to fighters in the Kandahar area and for coordinating arms shipments to the Taliban.
"Security forces advanced to the targeted compound, where they called for all occupants to exit the building peacefully before conducting searches," the statement said. "A member observed an armed individual with an AK-47 in an adjacent building within the same compound. The security force assessed the male as an immediate threat to the security force, and engaged him. The individual killed was the father of the targeted individual."
Interviews with witnesses of the Karz raid offered a different version of events and raised questions about who was detained. According to Mohammad Karzai, a cousin in Maryland who heard accounts from relatives who were in nearby houses in Afghanistan, the man killed was Yar Mohammad Karzai.
Tribal elders and relatives said the military forces had landed at least two helicopters in the Karzai cousin's compound. American Special Operations forces surrounded the house and did not allow anyone to leave or enter.
They went into the house and put a black bag over the head of the son, Farid, who is in his early 20s, said Mohammad Karzai. American forces handle almost all of the night raids.
Yar Mohammad Karzai was "shot in the head," said Hajji Fazal Mohammad Khan, a tribal elder in a neighboring village, Moshan. "His son, three bodyguards and two neighbors were detained, but later his son was set free, and the five others are in ISAF detention," Mr. Khan said.
"We don't know why he was raided," he added. "That area is free of Taliban, and he was not involved in any activity. People are really angry about his death. He was a very respected man in his community."
According to reports from elders in the area late Thursday, all of those detained, except one man, have been released. Farid Karzai was released and attended his father's funeral on Thursday, Mohammad Karzai said.
Some Karzai family members said they suspected that the night raid was somehow connected to a long-running family feud.
For decades, Yar Mohammad Karzai was engaged in a battle with Hashmat Karzai, another Karzai cousin who until recently operated a large security firm and ran unsuccessfully for the Afghan Parliament last year. Relatives say Yar Mohammad Karzai was accused of killing Hashmat's father in the early 1980s.
In 2009, Yar Mohammad Karzai's 18-year-old son, Waheed, was murdered, and Yar Mohammad and other family members accused Hashmat of killing him in revenge. Hashmat Karzai has denied any involvement.
Mohammad Karzai said Thursday that Yar Mohammad Karzai had repeatedly told him, after the 2009 murder of his younger son, that he feared that Hashmat Karzai would somehow try to use his connections to arrange for the United States military to attack him, perhaps by planting bad information with the Americans.
"Yar Mohammad told me several times that he believed that the next time Hashmat was going to send the U.S. military to kill him," Mohammad Karzai said.
Hashmat Karzai dismissed the accusation, saying, "This was an American raid." Referring to Yar Mohammad's son Farid, Hashmat Karzai said, "This was because Yar Mohammad's neighbor was the biggest gun dealer in Kandahar, and he was using the son to bring cars from Pakistan because he could get them through using the Karzai name." He said the accusation that he was involved was "a family feud" that other branches of the family refused to let go.
A NATO spokesman said the raid was being investigated.
Alissa J. Rubin reported from Kabul, and James Risen from Washington. Taimoor Shah contributed reporting from Kandahar, Afghanistan.
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/03/world/asia/03afghan.htm
[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/07/world/asia/07afghanistan.html