Breaking news (or is it?): Karzai’s brother on CIA payroll

Wali Karzai

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Citing “current and former American officials”, The New York Times said last night that Ahmed Wali Karzai, notorious drug lord and younger brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, “gets regular payments from the CIA. Understandably, the Times report is making headlines all over the world today, though it’s not exactly a revelation. IntelNews readers have known about Wali Karzai’s spy connection since September 17 (respect to The Washington Post‘s Rajiv Chandrasekaran, who first alerted us to it). That aside, there are four main new pieces of information in the Times article. First is the allegation that the CIA has financially sustained Wali Karzai ever since the initial US invasion of Afghanistan, in 2001. Second, Karzai appears to function as a “landlord” to the CIA force in southern Afghanistan, providing it with facilities and logistical support. Third, he “helps the CIA operate” a previously unknown paramilitary group, the Kandahar Strike Force, which is tasked with shoot-first-ask-questions-later raids on suspected insurgents. Finally (not in order of importance), it is interesting to note that “[t]he [CIA] ties to Mr. Karzai have created deep divisions within the Obama administration”, at a time when the US President is awaiting the rerun of the fraudulent Afghan national election before deciding how to proceed in this rapidly escalating war that America finds itself in.