Ahmed Wali Karzai, the corrupt and lawless face of modern Afghanistan
The murder of Afghan president's brother leaves a dangerous vacuum which the Taliban may exploit
Simon Tisdall
12 July 2011
Ahmed Wali Karzai, who was gunned down in his home in Kandahar by a bodyguard, was in many ways the personification of modern-day Afghanistan -- corrupt, treacherous, lawless, paradoxical, subservient and charming. Now with his violent death Karzai has also come to symbolise Afghanistan's enduring tragedy.
"My younger brother was martyred in his house today. This is the life of all Afghan people. I hope these miseries which every Afghan family faces will one day end," said his brother, Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president. But the hopes of American military commanders will be focused on a more immediate concern: how to prevent a power vacuum undermining their against-the-clock efforts to stabilise Kandahar and Helmand.
Karzai's was the modern face of warlordism, a man who had long been a force to be reckoned with in southern Afghanistan. He batted away repeated waves of allegations of drug trafficking, kleptocracy and money-laundering. His close personal connections to the presidency in Kabul was one important protection. His senior role in the Popalzai tribe and his chairmanship since 2005 of Kandahar provincial council bolstered his reputation as an Asian version of a mafia don.
Crucially, he was seen as a born survivor and indestructible powerbroker, a rain-maker who could not be bypassed or sidelined. After all, Karzai had overcome US attempts to push him out of the way and had shrugged off several assassination attempts. He once boasted nine suicide bombers had died in attempts to kill him. It couldn't last. Early on Tuesday morning his luck ran out.
The story could have been very different. As US and Nato efforts to pacify the south ran into ever greater Taliban resistance from 2007 to 2009, allied commanders and the western media began to apply ever greater scrutiny to the reliability of the west's Afghan partners. The US wanted the Afghan government to do more, do it better, and do it quickly. The war's growing unpopularity meant there was less tolerance for shifty allies like Karzai perceived to have a foot in both camps.
American frustrations burst into the open in October 2009 when serving and retired officials told the New York Times Karzai was a key player in Afghanistan's illegal opium trade, which helps fund the Taliban insurgency, while on the CIA payroll. Specifically, it was alleged Karzai helped recruit and run a paramilitary militia, known as the Kandahar Strike Force, used to conduct covert raids on Taliban leadership targets -- a death squad.
The floodgates opened. Even as Karzai denied the allegations, new claims surfaced that he was secretly dealing with Taliban leaders; that he lived rent-free in a luxury home owned by a notorious drug dealer; that he masterminded massive fraud and ballot-rigging in the 2009 presidential election that saw his brother returned to power; that he was using his local influence to lease illegally acquired land to Nato and American forces for inflated rents; that he was a money-launderer on an epic scale.
As usual, none of these claims could be definitively proved and Karzai denied all wrongdoing. "I am not a drug dealer. I never was and I never will be. I am a victim of vicious politics," he said in 2008 when claims emerged he was profiting from the $4bn a year drugs trade. A year later, he was stonewalling again. "I don't know anyone under the name of the CIA. I have never received any money from any organisation. I help, definitely. I help other Americans wherever I can. This is my duty as an Afghan."
All along, it was whispered, people in Kandahar who knew the truth kept their mouths shut, either for fear of retribution or because they were on the payroll too. Talking to the Times's Anthony Lloyd, one western official compared Kandahar to Boston during 1930s prohibition: "If you exist outside of the sphere of Karzai cartel influence, then life is tense," the official said. "There is an awful lot of violence here, motivated by power, money, and drugs. There is a desire to preserve instability, cloaked under the figleaf of respectability."
Unable to push Karzai aside (in part due to the steadfast support of his president brother), and apparently fearful of the consequences if they eliminated him themselves, the Americans changed tack in the spring of 2010, as General David Petraeus's surge strategy came into operation in the south. Instead of vilifying him, they co-opted him, and bolstered his standing by involving him in planning for the new strategy.
The decision raised hackles both in Washington, where it was feared it would tarnish the credibility of the war effort, and in Afghanistan, where many local people concluded the Americans were not serious about rooting out corruption and misgovernance.
"The plan is to incorporate him, to shape him. Unless you eliminate him, you have to," one coalition official conceded. "You can't ignore him. He's the proverbial 800lb gorilla and he's in the middle of a lot of rooms. He's the mafia don, the family fixer, the troubleshooter." And so Karzai survived again, by all accounts running Kandahar like a personal fiefdom.
Born in the southern city of Karz in 1961 and one of eight children -- he had six brothers, including Hamid Karzai, and a sister -- Ahmed Wali Karzai could be charming as well as ruthless. Visiting VIPs and Nato generals would routinely be given the royal treatment when entering his compound. Britain's Major-General Nick Carter, who served as Nato commander in Kandahar, once described a conversation in which Karzai enquired enthusiastically about Chelsea football club's Premier League performances, claiming to be a keen fan. In numerous interviews Karzai smoothly handled western reporters, a skill that sometimes escaped his brother.
Much as his presence posed a problem for the US and Nato, Karzai's sudden departure from the scene raises another set of worries, not least that the Taliban may be encouraged in their efforts to roll back hard-won gains across Kandahar province. The vacuum caused by his death is potentially dangerous in itself, while the implications for stuttering US attempts to engage the Taliban in peace talks may be equally unhelpful.
If nothing else, Karzai was a man whose life experience spanned both sides of the Afghan divide. His murder renders that gulf just a little bit wider.