Afghan president's brother assassinated (AFP)

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AFP) – Afghan President Hamid Karzai's younger brother, the government's key powerbroker in the south of the country, was assassinated on Tuesday, depriving NATO of a vital if controversial ally.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for killing Ahmed Wali Karzai in his own home, while a provincial police chief said he was shot dead by the long-serving commander of his family's personal protection force.

The president flew in the evening to Kandahar to pay respects to his brother and to attend the funeral, set to be held early Wednesday in the city amid tight security with the interior and defence ministers in attendance.

President Karzai earlier confirmed his brother's death at a news conference with visiting French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

"This morning, my younger brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai was martyred at his house," he said, reciting a Muslim prayer in Arabic.

"This is the life of the people of Afghanistan. Afghan families, every one of us, have suffered from it, and we hope, God willing, for our suffering to be over," he said.

The half-brother of the Afghan leader was for years a deeply controversial figure, dogged by allegations of unsavoury links to the nation's lucrative opium trade and private security firms.

But his killing raises disturbing questions about possible infiltration among those closest to the Karzai family and is also a severe blow to NATO and the Afghan leadership in Kandahar, the heartland of the Taliban insurgency.

The incident comes as coalition troops start withdrawing from the country and Western states search for a political solution after a decade of war.

Kandahar police chief Abdul Razeq identified the assassin as Sardar Mohammad, the commander of a force of 200 bodyguards who had provided security for the younger Karzai's family in Kandahar for seven years.

He said Mohammed showed a letter to bodyguards at the house in the upmarket neighbourhood of Bala Karz, saying he had "urgent" business with Karzai -- head of the Kandahar provincial council -- and was ushered into his study alone.

"Moments later the bodyguards hear the sound of gunshots and when they enter the room they find Ahmed Wali Karzai shot in the head and chest, and in a pool of blood," he said.

"The bodyguards riddle Sardar with bullets. Ahmed Wali Karzai died on the spot," he said, adding that the assassin and his victim, no one else died in the attack.

The police chief and an official at the hospital where Karzai's body was taken both said he had been shot in the head and the chest.

A senior official with Afghanistan's spy agency, the National Directorate for Security (NDS), confirmed the account of the killing by Mohammad who he said was an elder in Karzai's home village.

"They were meeting alone in a room," said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"Sardar takes off his pistol and shoots him twice." Describing the gunman as in "his late 30s or early 40s", he added: "Wali knew him from a long time ago."

The assassination came just before the Afghan leader received Sarkozy, who was on a surprise visit to Afghanistan where he announced that Paris would recall 1,000 soldiers by the end of next year.

Kandahar governor Tooryalai Wesa said the killer was a "trusted guy".

"Every time Hamid Karzai and Qayoum Karzai (his brother) would come to Kandahar for a family visit, all the security responsibility would be given to Sardar Mohammad," he said.

Razeq said Mohammad's personal bodyguards were arrested after the attack and security ramped up in Kandahar city, with roads around Karzai's house blocked.

American documents leaked by Internet whistleblower WikiLeaks painted the younger Karzai as a corrupt drugs baron, lifting the lid on Western thoughts long kept private.

The top US commander in Afghanistan, General David Petraeus, who steps down next week before becoming head of the CIA, condemned the killing and pledged the support of NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).

"ISAF will support the Afghan government in every possible way to bring to justice those involved," he said.

The US embassy in Kabul also condemned the assassination "in the strongest possible terms".

NATO's ambassador in Kabul, Simon Gass, and the Canadian ambassador to Afghanistan both issued statements of condolences to the president.

Kandahar is a make-or-break battleground in the US-led fight to defeat the insurgency, where the United States has poured in thousands of extra troops to wrest the initiative from the Taliban and bolster the Afghan government.

In April, Kandahar's provincial police chief was killed in a suicide bombing by one of his own bodyguards, who was believed to have known him for 10 years.

The governor of the restive province told AFP last month that insurgents in the area had recently changed tactics, using assassinations to sow fear.

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Afghan president's half brother killed in south (AP)

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan – President Hamid Karzai's half brother, the most powerful man in southern Afghanistan and a lightning rod for criticism of corruption in the government, was assassinated Tuesday by a close associate. His death leaves a dangerous power vacuum in the south just as the government has begun peace talks with insurgents ahead of a U.S. withdrawal.

Ahmed Wali Karzai, the head of the Kandahar provincial council, was shot to death while receiving guests at his home in Kandahar, the capital of the province that was the birthplace of the Taliban movement and was the site of a recent U.S.-led offensive.

Tooryalai Wesa, the provincial governor of Kandahar, identified the assassin as Sardar Mohammad and said he was a close, "trustworthy" person who had gone to Wali Karzai's house to get him to sign some papers.

As Wali Karzai was signing the papers, the assassin "took out a pistol and shot him with two bullets — one in the forehead and one in the chest," Wesa said. "Another patriot to the Afghan nation was martyred by the enemies of Afghanistan."

The killing coincided with a visit to the capital, Kabul, by French President Nicolas Sarzoky.

"This morning my younger brother Ahmed Wali Karzai was murdered in his home," the Afghan president said during a joint news conference with Sarkozy. "Such is the life of Afghanistan's people. In the houses of the people of Afghanistan, each of us is suffering and our hope is, God willing, to remove this suffering from the people of Afghanistan and implement peace and stability."

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the assassination at the heavily guarded house, hidden behind 8-foot (2.5 meter) blast walls. The Interior Ministry said an investigation was under way, and Kandahar Police Chief Gen. Abdul Raziq said police have detained several men who were guarding Mohammad's home for questioning about his recent activities.

President Karzai arrived in Kandahar on Tuesday evening by helicopter to attend the funeral scheduled for Wednesday morning, according to Raziq.

Wali Karzai, who was in his 50s and had survived several previous assassination attempts, was seen by many as a political liability for the Karzai government after a series of allegations, including that he was on the CIA payroll and involved in drug trafficking. He denied the charges. The president repeatedly challenged his accusers to show him evidence of his sibling's wrongdoing, but said nobody ever could.

Wali Karzai remained a key power broker in the south, helping shore up his family's interests in the Taliban's southern heartland, which has been the site of numerous offensives by U.S., coalition and Afghan troops to root out insurgents. Militants have retaliated by intimidating and killing local government officials or others against the Taliban.

The United Nations said in a quarterly report issued June 23 that more than half of all assassinations across Afghanistan since March had been in Kandahar. In April, the Kandahar police chief Khan Mohammad Mujahid was killed by a suicide bomber wearing a police uniform who blew himself up beside the official's car.

According to a government official with knowledge of the investigation, Wali Karzai was holding a meeting in his home with five provincial council members and a number of local village elders, including the assassin. The official said Mohammad was a close friend and had represented Wali Karzai many times in their shared home village of Karz, the president's hometown. Mohammad was the village elder of Karz and was his emissary and travel companion throughout Kandahar, the official said.

At about 11:30 a.m. Mohammad asked Wali Karzai to speak with him privately and to sign some papers in an adjoining room, the official said. Three shots rang out, according to the official. Wali Karzai's bodyguards ran into the room and found him on the floor with bullet wounds to his head, hand and leg. The bodyguards shot and killed the assassin.

The government official said that it remains unclear whether the killing was the result of an internal feud or a Taliban plot.

Although tribal rivalries are common in Kandahar, bloodletting within tribes is fairly uncommon, he said.

Agha Lalai, deputy of the provincial council, said he was one of the first to respond to the sounds of shots.

Lalai said that he and several other men picked up Wali Karzai and attempted to carry him out of the house, but he died before they left the grounds.

In Kabul, the political elite reacted to the killing with shock and concern about the future of the country's southern region and beyond. Though Wali Karzai held an elected office in the provincial council, people who knew him said he seemed to float above the various political and tribal spheres dominating the south. Throngs of people came to Karzai's house on a daily basis seeking remedies for everything from family disputes, to tribal battles, to political intrigues.

Members of the international community had urged the president to remove his brother from his powerful provincial position, saying that it was essential if he was to prove to the Afghan people that he was committed to good governance. But despite his alleged forays into narco-trafficking, smuggling, and land theft, many Western officials also relied on him because of his unparalleled reach and understanding of the various players in the area.

Noorolhaq Olomi, a former parliament member from Kandahar, said Wali Karzai was the most powerful man in southern Afghanistan — "more of a governor than the governor" and "everybody's leader in the south, not just Kandahar."

"I cannot say whether this was political or personal or some other matter," Olomi said. "But whoever did it, it shows the weakness of this government. The president needs to change things. He needs to change himself and build a government that is real. Right now, there is no government. It's all a fraud."

Condolences flooded into the president palace throughout the day.

Gen. David Petraeus, the outgoing commander of NATO and U.S. forces in Afghanistan, condemned the murder and said the coalition would support efforts to prosecute anyone who played a role in the killing. "President Karzai is working to create a stronger, more secure Afghanistan, and for such a tragic event to happen to someone within his own family is unfathomable," Petraeus said in a statement.

Both Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani called the president to express their sadness at his brother's death.

Abdullah Abdullah, the top opposition leader in Afghanistan who ran against Karzai in the latest presidential election, called it "an act against national personality and the ones who are at the service of the Afghan people."

Mohammad Yusuf Pashtun, a senior adviser to the president for construction, water, energy and mines, said the death will have a big impact on security in southern Afghanistan.

"My first impression is that in spite of all the negative propaganda against him he managed to be a source of stability in that area," he said. "When it comes to bringing people together in the south, this creates a vacuum. I don't know what will happen now, but something must be done by the local leadership."

Rangina Hamidi, a resident of Kandahar and daughter of the city's mayor, said Wali Karzai is survived by five children — two sons and three daughters. She says his youngest son was born about a month ago.

Wali Karzai has been the reported target of multiple assassination attempts.

In May 2009, a bodyguard was killed when his motorcade was ambushed by insurgents but Wali Karzai was not harmed.

That attack came less than two months after four Taliban suicide bombers stormed Kandahar's provincial council office, killing 13 people in an assault that Wali Karzai said was aimed at him, although he had left the building a few minutes beforehand.

Wali Karzai also survived a November 2008 suicide attack on the provincial council offices that killed six other people.

___

Associated Press writers Amir Shah, Rahim Faiez, Solomon Moore, Heidi Vogt and Deb Riechmann in Kabul and Kathy Gannon in Islamabad contributed to this report.

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Plumbing the conscience of the Unabomber's brother (AP)

MONTVILLE, N.J. – The seventh graders find their seats quickly and quietly. They look up expectantly from rows of desks, studying the unfamiliar man with salt-and-pepper hair, dressed in a navy sport jacket, who steps to the front of Room 30 without any introduction.

"I'm ... going to tell you guys a story of something that happened in my life before you were born," the man says. He speaks gently, his tone warm but slightly tentative — a voice that easily reaches the back of the room even as it appeals for careful listening.

"It's kind of a tough story," David Kaczynski continues. "There are parts of this story that are painful for me to remember."

Kaczynski does not mention that he has recounted this story many times — and, indeed, will repeat it at least twice more today. He does not tell the audience that this fragment of the past is central to who he is in the present. He does not explain that for all the times he's told it, he's still figuring out how to apply its lessons.

Better, perhaps, to let this story speak for itself.

"The story is about family. It's about ethics," David Kaczynski begins. "Does anybody know what ethics is?"

___

For those old enough to remember, it usually takes just a moment or two for the last name to register. Kaczynski.

In 1996, federal agents descended on a tiny Montana cabin, arresting a brilliant but deeply disturbed recluse, Theodore J. Kaczynski, for a two-decade mail bombing campaign that killed three people and injured 23 others.

Investigators had pursued the anti-technology terrorist known as the Unabomber since the late 1970s. In the end, someone recognized Ted Kaczynski's idiosyncratic writing and turned him in.

The tipster asked the FBI to let him remain anonymous. But the name soon leaked out: David Kaczynski — the bomber's devoted younger brother.

Until he became known as the brother of the Unabomber, David Kaczynski lived a content and rather anonymous life as the assistant director of a youth shelter in Albany, N.Y., married to a woman he'd known since seventh grade. Ever since, he has yearned for a day when the public and the media might forget the case and his role in it, when merely offering his last name to a stranger did not raise eyebrows.

Yet, in what he acknowledges as a self-inflicted paradox, David Kaczynski keeps the story out there, recounting it in classrooms and churches, to lawmakers and the families of murder victims.

"What would you have done?" he asks.

A few weeks ago, the U.S. Marshal's Service auctioned Ted Kaczynski's personal effects to raise money for victims. David Kaczynski was sharing dinner with his wife in an Applebee's restaurant near the couple's home in Schenectady, N.Y., when he noticed a headline scrolling across a television overhead. "They're selling Ted's stuff," he told his wife, casting a pall over the remainder of the meal.

A few days later, after time to think, he wrote about it in his blog.

"The goal of the auction is entirely worthy," David Kaczynski wrote. "If there is no other way to compensate the victims of the Unabomber, then let the auction go forward. I will look away ... and I hope it raises a ton of money. But couldn't we, to the extent we really care about victims, find a better way?"

It's a provocative question, especially given who was asking it. But it's hardly the first time the question has surfaced.

It's one David has been asking himself ever since Ted's trial.

___

In the lead up to the 1998 trial, David and wife, Linda Patrik sent letters of apology to as many of Ted's victims as they could locate. A few of the victims responded, including Gary Wright, the owner of a Salt Lake City computer store gravely injured in 1987 by one of Ted Kaczynski's bombs.

Later, on the telephone, the two men fumbled for words before realizing how much they had in common.

"I was very much struck at the end that he's really trying to comfort me," David Kaczynski recalls. "I was probably a bit feeling like a victim myself and I remember Gary saying, there really are victims out there. This is way more than just about you."

David Kaczynski is a devout Buddhist and his wife is a professor of philosophy, a combination that places a high household value on personal reflection. The experience of having their names leaked and the subsequent storm of media scrutiny had left them embittered. But after talking with Wright, Kaczynski found a new focus.

Soon after, a Connecticut man named Sam Rieger turned on the television in a hotel room while accompanying the family of a murder victim to trial. Rieger, of Waterbury, Conn., was president at the time of a support group called Survivors of Homicide; his own daughter, Melanie, was murdered in 1994. The experience convinced him the judicial system was ill equipped to work with victim's families and forgot them after trial.

"I turned on the `Today' show and there's Kaczynski talking about his brother. Then all of a sudden he started talking about his feelings toward his brother's victims and it was just so shocking because I've never seen that before," Rieger says.

Rieger called David Kaczynski, inviting him to speak to murder victims' families. Later, when the FBI awarded David $1 million for providing the information that led to Ted's arrest, he asked Rieger to be part of small panel that decided how to parcel out the money — about $750,000 after attorney's fees — to victims of the Unabomber. Rieger in turn, asked Kaczynski to speak to the annual victim's advocacy conference held in his daughter's memory — and inviting him to his son's wedding.

"Of course you always find a few (victim's families) who say why do you want somebody like him to come to the conference," Rieger says.

Kaczynski says watching the government spend millions to prosecute his brother convinced him that the justice system should do far more for crime victims and families, by providing money and support to help them make their lives whole.

Since 2001, Kaczynski has headed a group that campaigned to end New York's use of capital punishment. Since that goal was realized, New Yorkers for Alternative to the Death Penalty has retooled, creating a group to offer support to the families of murder victims and pushing for community-based anti-violence programs, even as it struggles to find the money to continue operating.

And Kaczynski, who is 61, continues recounting his story.

On this Thursday, visiting classrooms at Robert R. Lazar Middle School as part of its annual "Living Lessons" program, the story's power to get people thinking is almost immediately clear — even with an audience too young to remember the Unabomber case.

"Does he still live in a cabin?" one girl in the second-to-last row asks David about Ted, with obvious concern.

David Kaczynski nods and smiles.

"Oh," he answers gently, "you're getting ahead of the story."

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