Kandahar: Who Killed Karzai's Brother?

Karzai brother, controversial powerbroker, assassinated

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (France24/Reuters) – Ahmad Wali Karzai, Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s controversial brother, rode the tide of history from an Afghan refugee to Chicago restaurateur to powerbroker. His assassination sent shockwaves across the country and the international community, with the killing widely seen as a personal blow to the Afghan president.

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“Politics in Afghanistan is very personalized, so his death is highly symbolic,” said Thomas Ruttig, a former UN diplomat and co-founder of the Kabul-based Afghanistan Analysts Network. “For (Afghan President Hamid) Karzai, his death is a psychological blow. This attack will be interpreted as a blow against the Afghan president.”

Born in the southern Afghan town of Karz in 1961, Karzai – like his brothers – fled Afghanistan for Pakistan during the Soviet occupation before making his way to the US, where he owned a restaurant in Chicago.

Shortly after the 2001 fall of the Taliban, Karzai returned to his homeland where he rapidly gained prominence – mostly for the wrong reasons. Persistent reports of his links with the drug trade seriously undermined his brother’s credibility as the international community’s complaints of Karzai’s corruption grew louder.

Who killed Karzai? Claims, counterclaims, no surprises

The head of the Kandahar provincial council, Karzai was widely reputed to have links with drug barons, criminal networks, security services as well as the CIA. As his fame and power grew over the past few years, he was perennially shadowed by a retinue of heavily armed bodyguards

But according to early reports, it was apparently one of those bodyguards who turned fire on the man he was supposed to protect.

Shortly after the attack, Abdul Ghafar Sayedzada, head of the counter-terrorism department at the Afghan Interior Ministry, told Reuters that, “It appears Ahmad Wali Karzai has been killed by one of his bodyguards, and there was nobody from outside involved.”