Word: kabul
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...fight the Taliban and al-Qaeda were involved in the drug trade. Now, officials say, the Obama Administration is taking a tough approach to drugs in Afghanistan, sparing no one, not even friends and associates of President Hamid Karzai. "Everyone's fair game," says a Western counternarcotics official in Kabul. "If someone comes within reach of our investigation, nothing is going to stop us from making a case." (See pictures of the presidential election in Afghanistan...
This Isn't OverWhen the military commanders and counternarcotics officials finally agree on what to do with the poppy crop - McChrystal is likely to win that debate - they will confront the next challenge: getting the farmers to eventually grow other crops instead. The last time officials in Kabul tried to get Marjah farmers to switch to wheat cultivation was in 2008, when opium was selling at $75 a kg, a long way down from the peak of $250 a kilo in 2003. Even so, the farmers turned down subsidized wheat seed and fertilizer, believing opium would be more profitable. They...
...semblance of normality has returned to Marjah under the watchful presence of 15,000 NATO and Afghan forces. Even President Karzai, who seldom leaves his Kabul palace for fear of assassination, was emboldened to pay a flying visit to a local mosque on March 7. He listened while local elders scolded him over his choices of corrupt officials posted to Marjah and the civilian casualties caused by the NATO assault. They also demanded that he build schools and hospitals and provide jobs. "They had some very legitimate complaints - very, very legitimate," Karzai said soberly as he left the mosque. "They...
...Interviewed at his guarded home in Kabul, Zaeef says he never spoke to Zakir at Gitmo, because Zakir (identified as Prisoner No. 8) was kept in a different cell block. After a month of sleep deprivation ("The guards would force me to stand every time I tried to sit down," he says), the interrogations continued but the conditions of his confinement relaxed. Zaeef came to accept his captivity as a test from God. He memorized the Koran and brushed up on his English, which he now uses skillfully. He describes the Pakistanis, whom he says sold him to the Americans...
...Zakir's Gitmo interrogators believed him, even while he was plotting revenge against his captors. In December 2007, he was flown back home, placed in an Afghan prison near Kabul and released shortly after, perhaps as a result of his tribal connections; his Ahunzada tribe from Helmand was considered a Karzai ally. Commenting on why such a lethal foe was freed from Gitmo, a NATO general - who asked not to be identified - replied with a shake of his head, "Human intelligence is guesswork at best. You never know if someone like this will go peacefully back to their tribe...