Cables From Kabul - The President's Brother Is Dead

Ahmed Wali Karzai

We found out about Ahmed Wali Karzai's killing ages before you did.

In Kabul there are three ways to find out what's going on: information, intelligence and the news. The last one is the least accurate. Nine times out of ten your taxi driver knows more than the BBC.

We spent yesterday with the Kabul police force. After razor wire, reinforced concrete walls and speed bumps, these are the guys who stand between the Taliban and their targets. They do a good job. Over a hundred Afghan police are killed every month.

We were in the middle of morning chai with chief of police General Farooq, when he got a phone call telling him that President Karzai's half-brother had been shot. General Farooq is one of the most powerful men in Kabul. He doesn't need to pay for a thing in this town and when his cigarettes reach filter someone runs up and stubs them out for him. This is what he told us: while Ahmed Wali Karzai was holding counsel with tribal leaders from the Kandahar province, his bodyguard, Sardar Mohammad, asked him to step outside for a word in the ear. They walked into the next room where the bodyguard shot him two times. The rest of the bodyguards then piled into the room and took out Sardar.

I wonder what the tribal leaders and the bodyguards did next. Must have been pretty awkward.

Kandahar is on complete lock-down. As soon as word of the shooting leaked, shops, businesses and schools closed and everyone went home to wait out the next wave. No one’s convinced that it's over yet, though apparently some enraged Karzai supporters found the nerve to go outside and decorate a city centre roundabout with Sardar's remains.

Weddings are dangerous in Afghanistan. The opportunities they provide for frying up some inter-family beef are often too big to resist. Bouquets aren't the only thing thrown into the crowd. But funerals are equally dangerous. According to our fixer, the only reason they took out Karzai's half-brother was to get at President Karzai. The funeral is taking place today and Karzai will be in attendance. Even though he employs a foreign (ie less corruptible) security team, it's pretty much a given that the Taliban will try to attack him.

Karzai isn’t liked by everyone, but at least he gives Afghanis the impression that they’re in charge of their own country. If he were to go, every other white face in town would be in the departure lounge and the Taliban would be grooming their beards in anticipation of regaining power.

CONOR CREIGHTON