The Afghans are already turning on one another. In Mazar-e Sharif, U.S. military officers had to mediate between one of Karzai’s government-appointed military commanders and the powerful Uzbek warlord Abdulrashid Dostum. And on Saturday an old mujahedin commander, Haji Qadir, left the office after his first day as minister of Public Works, and was shot eight times. It was clearly an inside job. NEWSWEEK has learned that the ministry’s security chief ordered guards to report to work that day without their guns. Many of them stood by as the assassins waited in plain view for Qadir’s car to leave the ministry. It wasn’t the first time that one of Karzai’s ministers was allegedly killed by rivals within the government.
Karzai has repeatedly complained that the International Security Assistance Force needs to be expanded beyond just Kabul. The idea was that ISAF would protect his government from enemies like the Taliban and Al Qaeda, but so far they haven’t been a problem. And there’s not much that any international force can do to protect Karzai from his friends.
