NATO and Afghan forces killed President Hamid Karzai’s cousin, one Yar Mohammed Karzai, 60 years old, during a night raid against suspected Taliban commanders. NATO and Afghan forces searched the village of Karz, the ancestral home of the Karzai clan and detained Farid Karzai, Yar Mohammed’s son’ under suspicions that he was a Taliban commander. During the encounter, the elder Karzai is reported to have been wielding an Ak-47 and, in the ensuing commotion, was killed by a gunshot to teh head.
According to the New York Times, NATO ISAF soldiers and their Afghan counterparts were searching for a Taliban leader who was “responsible for distributing car bombs to fighters in the greater Kandahar area and coordinated arms shipments to the Taliban.”
NATO’s version of events is that :
“Security forces advanced to the targeted compound where they called for all occupants to exit the building peacefully before conducting searches,” the statement said. “A member observed an armed individual with an AK-47 in an adjacent building within the same compound. The security force assessed the male as an immediate threat to the security force, and engaged him. The individual killed was the father of the targeted individual.”
If true this would mean that a very close relative of President Karzai’s was actually fighting against his embattled government, the same government supported by and funded by his U.S and NATO allies. If true this is sure to be a deeply troubling incident, well beyond the lives lost and the local reputations besmirched.
The Karzai family’s version of the story unsurprisingly differs from NATO’ account, though some of the facts are well beyond dispute. No one disputes that Yar Mohammad was killed; nor that ISAF troops were looking about for a Taliban leader. What has changed is culpability for Yar Karzai’s death. The Karzai family and local village leaders claim that Yar Mohammad was an elderly man, principally occupied with farming. President Karzai’s brother, and the current governor of Kandahar Province claims Yar Mohammad was killed by accident.
Little surprise then that the conflicting accounts have led to an enquiry on the event, a process that is sure to obfuscate more than enlighten.
President Karzai has long argued that ISAF night raids harm more than help the counterinsurgency effort in the South and Eastern parts of Afghanistan. One might have thought President Karzai would have reacted furiously to the news that his kin had been killed; instead he took the news quite calmly. Perhaps tribal infighting had pit Hamid Karzai against his older cousin, so much so that he could hardly have cracked his tight lipped grimace when he heard the news.