tattoo empek empek: [New post] CFR.org Roundup: Karzai's brother shot dead

[New post] CFR.org Roundup: Karzai's brother shot dead

CFR.org Roundup: Karzai's brother shot dead

amarcnn | July 12, 2011 at 10:11 am | Tags: CNN Editors | Categories: Daily Roundup | URL: http://wp.me/p1bJgh-26m

Editor's Note: The following is reprinted with the permission of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Ahmed Wali Karzai, the powerful half-brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, was shot dead (al-Jazeera) by a security official visiting his house in Kandahar on Tuesday morning. The Taliban immediately claimed responsibility for the murder, but Afghan officials insisted the man, Sardar Mohammad, was a longtime confidante of Karzai's.

Wali Karzai, a formidable powerbroker in the southern province of Kandahar--the Taliban's strategic base and locus of the U.S. military surge--had been accused by the United States of having ties to southern Afghanistan's lucrative narcotics trade and engaging in other corrupt practices. However, over the past year, U.S. officials courted his support, seeing him as necessary for stability (WSJ) in the fragile southern region.

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