Witnesses Give Details of Ahmed Wali Karzai’s Last Minutes and His Killer
By CARLOTTA GALL and RUHULLAH KHAPALWAK
Published: July 12, 2011
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KABUL, Afghanistan — Ahmed Wali Karzai was conducting business in his normal fashion on Tuesday morning, holding court as 60 to 70 people filled the rooms of his large residence that also served as his office in central Kandahar, when one of his most faithful commanders asked to speak to him alone and then shot him at point-blank range.
KABUL, Afghanistan — Ahmed Wali Karzai was conducting business in his normal fashion on Tuesday morning, holding court as 60 to 70 people filled the rooms of his large residence that also served as his office in central Kandahar, when one of his most faithful commanders asked to speak to him alone and then shot him at point-blank range.
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The head of the elected provincial council, Mr. Karzai wielded power far beyond that office, both because he was a half brother to the president, Hamid Karzai, and because he had amassed great wealth and power over business, security and administrative affairs in Kandahar Province and much of southern Afghanistan.
Every day his office was filled with petitioners, provincial officials, and tribal and family friends who came to seek his advice and support on business matters, political dealings and tribal disputes.
On Tuesday morning he sat for half an hour with Mir Wali, a former legislator from neighboring Helmand Province, who is one of those contesting recent parliamentary election results. Then a fellow provincial councilor, Haji Agha Lalai, entered and requested five minutes of Mr. Karzai’s time. The two descended to the first floor and sat for a few minutes before an old man from the city requested a hearing.
Mr. Karzai moved into a room with the old man, and it was then that a commander, Sardar Muhammad, 40, asked to see Mr. Karzai alone. He was carrying a file and wanted Mr. Karzai to look at the information inside, said Haji Sayed Jan, a close colleague who is considered Mr. Karzai’s deputy on the provincial council.
The commander was well known and so trusted by the Karzai family that he would pick up and carry Mr. Karzai’s young son into the family quarters. For his services, he was awarded a plot of land in an upscale Kandahar housing development. He also commanded about 100 men and managed the police posts in an area called Zakar, adjoining the family neighborhood of Karz on the southern side of the city.
“There was no argument between Sardar Muhammad and Ahmed Wali,” Mr. Jan said. The commander had been working with the Karzai family for eight years and came from the same Populzai tribe, he said.
Yet he came to see Mr. Karzai on Tuesday morning with a purpose, opening fire as soon as they went inside the room, Mr. Jan said. “He came deliberately to kill him. He gave him a file and told him he should look at it and as he was looking he took out his pistol and shot him.”
None of those who knew Mr. Muhammad accepted the Taliban’s claim that he was acting on behalf of insurgents. Two people who knew him said he was a drug user, and suggested that he became angry over some dispute with Mr. Karzai. Members of the police often use hashish in Afghanistan.
“I would not connect it with the Taliban,” a relative of Mr. Muhammad said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was discussing a crime. “He was very much liked and loved by Ahmed Wali. It is very difficult to say why he did it.”
“He was using drugs,” he added, declining to be more specific.
Witnesses said security guards burst into the room as soon as they heard the first shot and killed the commander as he fired off a third bullet. Mr. Karzai was shot twice in the head and once in the hand, said Haji Agha Lalai, a provincial councilor who was in the room next door when the shooting began. He said he helped carry the wounded Mr. Karzai down to a car and accompanied him to the hospital.
“I was holding him and I was not very sure he would survive,” he said. “It was confirmed in the hospital that he was dead.”
Mr. Karzai’s bodyguards were angry and continued shooting, and some were in tears, said Mr. Wali, the former legislator. “We came out and we saw Ahmed Wali being carried out and Sardar Muhammad was lying on the floor,” he said.
Some of Mr. Karzai’s security guards dragged the assailant’s body out of the building and strung him up at the crossroads of the central bazaar, said an intelligence official in Kandahar. It was a grim reminder of the Taliban era, when criminals were killed and put on public display.
Supporters gathered at the city hospital, where American and Afghan forces quickly set up a security cordon as Mr. Karzai’s body was moved to the morgue.
As word spread in the city, shopkeepers shuttered their stores and went home in fear of further violence. Security forces set up checkpoints, stopping cars as officials warned that Taliban insurgents would use the opportunity to strike another blow at the government.
Residents, tribal elders and politicians warned that the violent death of Mr. Karzai and the subsequent power vacuum would cause greater instability.
“It is a disaster,” said Mr. Wali. “It will have a very negative effect on everything in the south.”
“There will be problems ahead for Kandahar,” said Haji Karimullah Naqibi, a leader of one of Kandahar’s largest tribes. “The president will have to administer and watch Kandahar very closely from now on.”
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