Powerful Afghan Governor Challenges President - WSJ.com

Defiant Former Warlord With Popular Backing and Armed Supporters Demands a Say for Karzai's Defeated Rival Abdullah

By YAROSLAV TROFIMOV

MAZAR-E-SHARIF, Afghanistan -- An escalating quarrel between Afghan President Hamid Karzai and a powerful governor is stoking fears of bloodshed in one of the country's more peaceful and prosperous provinces.

During this year's presidential election, Balkh Gov. Atta Mohammad Noor was alone among Afghanistan's 34 governors -- all of whom were appointed by Mr. Karzai -- to openly back challenger Abdullah Abdullah.

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Afghan National Police searched cars at a checkpoint on the outskirts of Mazar-e-Sharif, Afghanistan, Wednesday.

Mr. Karzai's victory last week, declared by an election commission after months of controversy, has Mr. Atta steaming, and tensions rising over the prospect that Kabul will try to reassert central authority in this province of two million people.

"Karzai is a thief of people's votes. Democracy has been buried in Afghanistan. He's not a lawful president," Mr. Atta said in an interview in his vast rococo-styled office, as turbaned supplicants lined up to petition for his help in resolving court cases and disputes with local authorities.

Mr. Karzai was declared the winner after Dr. Abdullah withdrew from the race, claiming that the election commission was biased. Dr. Abdullah has yet to concede defeat, and is seeking a broad say in policy making.

The governor, whose personal bodyguard militia lines city streets in the mornings, with rocket-propelled grenades poking out from their backpacks, hinted at what could happen if Dr. Abdullah's demands aren't met.

"We do not want to use violence to further our demands -- but the people have the right to defend themselves if democratic norms are violated," he said.

Mr. Atta didn't rule out reconciling with Mr. Karzai. He said such a deal would involve giving key ministries to the Abdullah team -- and must include Mr. Karzai embracing the challenger's agenda for a decentralized, corruption-free government.

The governor's control of this vital province, on the crossroads of North Atlantic Treaty Organization supply routes from Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, serves as Dr. Abdullah's strongest card in trying to wring postelection concessions from Mr. Karzai.

But Mr. Atta's defiance of Kabul is also stoking fears that Mr. Karzai could seek to replace the province's police chief -- who is a presidential appointee but loyal to Mr. Atta -- and even fire the governor himself.

That, some say, could bring a repeat of the carnage inflicted by feuding mujahedeen commanders in the 1990s. "We have dark memories about the civil war in the past, and we fear that such days are again in our future," says S.M. Taher Roshanzada, a prominent businessman who heads the Balkh Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Mr. Atta is genuinely popular here, and any movement against him is likely to spark unrest. "All the people of Mazar will be in the streets if Atta is removed -- and some will bring the weapons with them," said Munir Ahmad, a 21-year-old student in Mazar-e-Sharif, the provincial capital and the bustling economic hub of northern Afghanistan.

Maj. Gen. Murad Ali, the regional Afghan army corps commander based in Mazar-e-Sharif, says he is seeing intelligence suggesting that some of Mr. Atta's supporters are arming themselves in expectation of a showdown.

Kabul authorities shouldn't be afraid of confronting the governor, adds the general, who is a Karzai appointee loyal to the president. "If a president cannot even replace a governor, what kind of government is this?" he wondered. "How can people trust it?"

Mazar-e-Sharif and the surrounding province of Balkh have been ruled by Mr. Atta with an iron hand since 2004. Like Dr. Abdullah, Mr. Atta -- identified as "Full-rank General" on his business cards, though he usually wears charcoal banker suits -- is a former comrade-in-arms of Ahmad Shah Masoud, a Tajik warlord assassinated by al Qaeda in 2001.

Campaign banners with portraits of Dr. Abdullah and Mr. Atta hang all over Mazar-e-Sharif, proclaiming that the two men "come from the same trench" -- marking the city as solid opposition territory.

While corrupt officials stuffed nearly a million fraudulent ballots for Mr. Karzai elsewhere in Afghanistan during the election's first round in August, here in Balkh the falsification occurred to Dr. Abdullah's advantage, according to the United Nations-led election watchdog.

Many of Mr. Karzai's supporters, especially from the ethnic Hazara and Uzbek communities, want the Afghan president to fire Balkh's mutinous governor. "He's been in power for too many years -- and if water stands still, it turns into a cesspool," says Sardar Mohammad Saeedi, the deputy head of Mr. Karzai's re-election campaign in the north and regional chief for the mostly Hazara Hezb-e-Wahdat party.

Yet such moves are likely to be discouraged by the U.S. and Western allies, diplomats say. Balkh, under Mr. Atta's rule, has been largely insulated from the Taliban insurgency that spread over the past year through other formerly peaceful provinces of northern Afghanistan.

Famous for its medieval tiled mosque where Prophet Muhammad's son-in-law is believed to be buried, Mazar-e-Sharif is a remarkably relaxed city by Afghan standards, with few of the razor wire barriers, cement blocks and Hesco fortifications that give Kabul or Kandahar the look of a military camp under siege.

Mr. Atta "is the son of this province -- he's been here during the jihad, he's been here fighting the Taliban, he knows everyone here and everyone knows him -- which is why he was able to play a big role in making this province secure," says the Balkh chief of Afghan National Police, Gen. Sardar Mohammad Sultani.

In a sign of how safe this part of Afghanistan is perceived to be, the foreign troops responsible for security in Balkh and three adjoining provinces consist of a few hundred soldiers from neutral Sweden and Finland.

The contingent's acting commander, Finnish Army Lt. Col. Tommi Härkönen, says he doesn't foresee much trouble because of Mr. Atta's fallout with Kabul. "There could be some demonstrations or crowds gathering, but we don't expect a major problem," he says.

Interviews with many Mazar-e-Sharif residents, however, suggest a more alarming picture. "People trust and respect [Atta]," said Hamid, a 25-year-old businessman who, like many Afghans, goes by one name. "But if he's gone, they will turn to backing the Taliban, as it happened in other provinces."

Write to Yaroslav Trofimov at yaroslav.trofimov@wsj.com

Camp of Afghan challenger Abdullah sought top posts, officials say - washingtonpost.com

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Talks continued until hours before candidate withdrew, officials say

By Joshua Partlow
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, November 4, 2009

KABUL -- When Abdullah Abdullah chose to withdraw from the presidential election this week -- effectively handing incumbent Hamid Karzai a new term -- he described his position as a selfless protest against a flawed electoral system that was not fair for all Afghans.

But in the behind-the-scenes negotiations between the Abdullah and Karzai camps, less high-minded motives also were at play. Afghan and Western officials said Abdullah's representatives were seeking a power-sharing deal with Karzai, demanding several senior government positions in talks that continued until hours before he announced his withdrawal Sunday.

One Afghan official close to Karzai said that around 2:30 p.m. Saturday, an Abdullah representative handed over a document demanding 11 senior government posts, including cabinet positions, for the candidate's supporters. A Western official said Abdullah's team had earlier demanded five positions.

Among the demands was that Attah Mohammed Noor, a strong Abdullah supporter and the governor of Balkh province in the north, would remain in his post and that a son of former president Burhanuddin Rabbani would get a cabinet seat. Abdullah's camp was also pushing for the removal of the interior and defense ministers, close allies of Karzai.

This "double game" is "all about the number of cabinet posts," the Afghan official said. "That's Afghan politics."

It remains unclear whether the negotiations were initiated at Abdullah's direction or whether his supporters were acting independently. Neither side would say whether Karzai and Abdullah reached a deal on government posts or whether the talks influenced Abdullah's decision to withdraw from the race.

Abdullah's intentions

The central question now facing Abdullah is how he will use the political capital he accrued in the election. Although foreign diplomats hailed him as a statesman for his honorable campaign conduct -- appealing to his supporters to remain calm during the uncertain weeks after the first round of voting in August -- many Afghans ultimately saw him as a spoiler, surrounded by men who viewed politics as a contest of raw power.

The circumstances of Abdullah's departure from the race shed little light on his intentions. His aides insist that Karzai refused to budge on any of the demands Abdullah made to reform an electoral process that produced large-scale fraud in the first round, making withdrawal his only option. Some of his supporters say he should focus on building a political party outside the government to pressure Karzai into reforms. One top Abdullah campaign official, however, said there was a 60 percent chance that Abdullah allies would end up in the cabinet.

In his first speech since being declared the election's winner, Karzai said Tuesday that he would be open to cooperating with his rivals, although he did not say whether there would be a place for Abdullah.

"My government will be for all Afghans, and all those who want to work with me are most welcome, regardless of whether they opposed me in the election or whether they supported me in the election," he said.

Karzai also vowed to "launch a campaign to clean the government of corruption," which is a top priority for the Obama administration. He suggested that curbing corruption would not be accomplished by removing high-ranking officials but by reforming Afghan laws and strengthening an anti-corruption panel that was formed last year.

During the negotiations over potential power-sharing arrangements, Rabbani, an influential power broker in Afghan politics who had backed Abdullah, was an advocate for securing government positions for Abdullah supporters, several officials said.

"Rabbani wanted the deal; he wanted the cabinet posts," said the Afghan official close to Karzai. But reaching such an agreement was difficult because Karzai felt he "already has a coalition."

"Abdullah does not offer a good number of technocrats and liberals that would be acceptable to the international community," the official said.

A spokesman for Abdullah said he could not confirm whether demands had been made for cabinet posts.

Reform vs. top jobs

People close to Abdullah say he is more interested in pushing a reform agenda than in securing seats in the government for his backers. During the campaign, he advocated for a parliamentary system with elected governors as a check on presidential powers.

"Our slogan for the campaign was hope and change," said Homayoun Shah Assefy, one of Abdullah's running mates. "If we enter this government without an agreement on reforms, it would be political suicide for us."

Some observers said Karzai would be more willing to put members of Abdullah's team in cabinet posts than to enact sweeping reforms.

"From his point of view, it's not a big sacrifice to choose ministers who were opposed to him in the election, provided they are now on his side," the Western official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. "The biggest sacrifice would be to get into constitutional changes."

Correspondent Pamela Constable and special correspondent Javed Hamdard contributed to this report.

Abdullah widely expected to boycott Afghan run-off election - washingtonpost.com

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

By Pamela Constable
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, October 31, 2009 11:51 AM

KABUL -- A presidential run-off election planned for Nov. 7 was thrown into turmoil Saturday, with the main challenger to President Hamid Karzai, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah, widely expected to pull out of the race.

Campaign spokesmen for Abdullah said he had not made a final decision but would announce it here Sunday at a gathering of his top supporters from around the country. Some analysts suggested the boycott threat was an eleventh-hour ploy to win a power-sharing agreement with Karzai.

However, several sources close to Abdullah said he had no option but to boycott the contest. They said Karzai had refused to meet Abdullah's demands to fire the nation's top election official and take other measures to prevent the fraud that marred the original presidential election in August.

"We don't want to boycott, but Mr. Karzai has not accepted any conditions, so he left us with no other choice," said one member of Abdullah's political team, speaking on the condition of anonymity because Abdullah has not yet announced his plans. "There is no guarantee that a second round would be free and fair. It would only create more problems than it solves."

The prospect of Abdullah's withdrawal could plunge Afghanistan into an even deeper political crisis after weeks of mounting tension and uncertainty over how to form a new government. Karzai's victory in the Aug. 20 presidential election was found invalid because of widespread fraud, leading to plans for the runoff.

A canceled or marred election would further complicate matters for the Obama administration, which is nearing a decision on whether to significantly expand its military commitment to the war against Afghan and al-Qaeda insurgents. Washington has been counting on the election to produce a credible administration and partner in the war effort.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who arrived in Abu Dhabi early Saturday for a meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, played down the importance of a possible Abdullah withdrawal, however, saying that his decision was a "personal choice which may or may not be made."

Asked whether a run-off would be legitimate with only one candidate running, Clinton said that "other countries" had faced similar situations. "We see that happen in our own country where, for whatever combination of reasons, one of the candidates decides no to go forward. I don't think it has anything to do with the legitimacy of the election," Clinton said.

U.S. officials had pressed Karzai hard to accept the run-off and he reluctantly agreed, although there was widespread concern among Afghans that the second round would not only be marred by fraud but would be even more vulnerable to insurgent attacks than the first poll. This week, the Taliban killed six U.N. workers and threatened to violently sabotage the Nov. 7 vote.

Aides to Karzai said Saturday that Abdullah has no right to boycott the election and that if he does, it will be up to the Afghan election commission to decide what to do. However, they also said he is legally allowed to simply resign from the race, in which case Karzai would automatically win.

"He can resign, but he cannot boycott, because he already accepted the election the first time," Moinuddin Manastial, a legislator and campaign aide to Karzai, said late Saturday. "He is making excuses to do something that is not in the constitution, while we are ready to go for the elections 100 percent."

Election officials said that they are still preparing to hold the vote, that Afghan security forces are ready to protect the voters at more than 6,000 polling stations across the country, and that neither candidate has the right to withdraw at this late date. Whether Abdullah boycotts the vote or not, his name will remain on the ballot.

Some analysts said they thought the door might still be open to a last-minute compromise between Karzai and Abdullah. They said Abdullah's threats to quit were aimed at undermining Karzai's electoral legitimacy and at pressing him for a power-sharing deal. But there was no hint from either camp that an agreement is still being explored.

Independent election experts said it is not clear what will happen if Abdullah does quit the race. They said most of the possible options -- canceling the vote and having Karzai declared president; having him run alone; or postponing the race until spring and replacing Abdullah with the third-highest vote-getter -- would either leave the country in political limbo or Karzai as head of a weak and illegitimate new administration.

"The situation is both depressing and complicated," said Ahmad Nader Nadery, chairman of the private Free and Fair Elections Foundation. "The law is silent on what to do in this situation, and whatever happens is likely to bring us more deeply into trouble, because we will probably end up with a president who did not get the minimum number of votes in a fair election."

Local analysts and Kabul residents glued to TV news stations Saturday expressed concern that violence could erupt in the capital and other cities if Abdullah quits the race amid angry recriminations and Karzai remains in office. Some of Abdullah's powerful supporters who command regional or private militias have vowed not to recognize or obey a new Karzai administration.

Abdullah, who abruptly canceled a scheduled trip to India on Saturday, has delayed announcing his decision for the past several days amid a flurry of private negotiations and meetings involving Karzai, Abdullah and their political aides and allies, as well as several foreign diplomats.

But sources close to the discussions told various media outlets late Friday and Saturday that talks between the two rival leaders collapsed Friday after Karzai had already announced he would not meet Abdullah's demands to fire the election commission chairman and other officials.

Since then, several sources said, Abdullah has leaned toward boycotting the contest, which Karzai has been widely expected to win. In the first round, even after hundreds of thousands of votes for Karzai were found invalid and discounted, the president won more than 49 percent of the vote, while Abdullah won less than 30 per cent.

Although Abdullah's public manner has been polite and his demands have sounded reasonable, there is widespread public skepticism about his sincerity. Some analysts say he wants to remain in the race but is surrounded by ambitious allies who have been pressing him to make a deal with Karzai.

Diplomatic sources said earlier this week that Karzai was open to forming a "government of unity" after the elections that would include Abdullah and his allies, but that he would not make any deal in advance.

Some experts and diplomats have suggested that if the country's political crisis deepens or there is an eruption of violence, the wisest solution would be to establish an interim or caretaker government and hold a new election in the spring, when the winter snows have melted and voters can go to the polls again.

But U.S. officials already appear to be preparing to accept Karzai's extended presidency as a fait accompli. Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), who personally persuaded Karzai to accept the run-off during a visit to Kabul, told a TV interviewer in Washington on Friday that he has confidence in Karzai's political resilience and that the Afghan president is "prepared to embrace reforms" in a new term.

Staff writer Karen DeYoung contributed to this report.

Win or Lose, Abdullah May Play Pivotal Role in Afghanistan - washingtonpost.com

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Reaction to Results Of Recount Crucial

By Karin Brulliard
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, October 15, 2009

KABUL -- Abdullah Abdullah stood before a roomful of supporters at a hotel here last week, slamming the failings of the Afghan government like a man still on the campaign trail -- which, the presidential candidate insists, he is.

"It doesn't seem to me we can avoid a second round," Abdullah, President Hamid Karzai's former foreign minister, said in an interview, repeating what has become his refrain since Afghanistan's fraud-marred election in August.

Abdullah may yet be proved right. Though he polled about half as much of the vote as Karzai's 54 percent, according to a preliminary tally, an ongoing recount by a U.N.-backed commission could disqualify enough fraudulent ballots to push Karzai below the majority he needs and force a runoff.

But many Western officials doubt that will happen -- a view some observers suspect Abdullah shares despite his assertions to the contrary. And how he reacts to a Karzai victory, analysts say, could determine whether Afghanistan erupts in clashes between Abdullah's Tajik supporters and Karzai's Pashtun followers or whether it calmly transitions to a coalition government -- albeit one potentially hamstrung by division.

Abdullah and his advisers say they will decide their next step only when the recount is finished, as is expected this week. But they insist any alliance with Karzai is not an option. Abdullah, who was dismissed from the cabinet in 2006 and has drawn support from Karzai opponents of various stripes, is running for president and nothing else, they say.

"When we decided he should be a candidate, we did not decide in order for him to have a position in government," said Ahmed Wali Massoud, an Abdullah confidant and former ambassador to Britain. "This is very naive, I think."

But in a nation where ethnic divisions often spur violence, fears abound that Abdullah's rejection of a Karzai win could stoke an uprising by his supporters, particularly in the increasingly unstable north. Abdullah has urged calm, a call he said he would repeat if the recount affirms a Karzai victory. But, Abdullah said in the interview, he would "not be in a position to guarantee anything."

"If we are going to protest, there must be tight security," said Mahmood Shah, 34, a tailor sitting at his sewing machine in Kabul's Khair Khana, a heavily Tajik neighborhood and Abdullah stronghold. "Even if they say it will be a peaceful protest, it will not be."

Analysts said they do not expect Abdullah to incite strife, citing his vows not to. But one of his northern allies, Balkh province governor Atta Mohammed Noor, is another matter. Noor, a Tajik, has accused the central government of distributing weapons to northern Pashtuns in preparation for post-recount conflict. A Karzai aide denied the allegation.

"Abdullah's standing has gone up quite considerably, I think, both in Afghanistan and internationally," said a Western diplomat in Kabul. "If he was seen to be instigating violence, that would go against him. We feel he's unlikely to create any problems."

Abdullah might be open to a deal with Karzai, analysts said, a possibility that nervous Western officials are said to be pressuring Abdullah to consider, though the candidate denied that. Arsala Jamal, a Karzai campaign manager, said members of Abdullah's camp had approached the president about the idea.

"I believe [Karzai] will be sitting at the same table as Abdullah. That is his nature," Jamal said. "Political diversity, we need it."

Abdullah may have little choice but to negotiate, said Haroun Mir, director of the Afghanistan Center for Research and Policy Studies in Kabul. In the impoverished country, he said, power is tied to government money and access, stunting the influence of any opposition figure who does not have massive outside funding. Abdullah might not seek a government position for himself, but he would probably want spots for his allies as ministers or governors, who are appointed, Mir said.

What's more, Karzai, who has been tainted by accusations of fraud, probably needs Abdullah's support to regain credibility. Yet while a pact might be the least volatile outcome, it would be no victory for Afghanistan, Mir said: Karzai is beholden to various warlords and power brokers, and a unity government would bring more of the same paralysis.

"It's nice to bring people together, but the problem is we need a functioning government," Mir said. "Karzai is not a manager. . . . He wants to satisfy everyone at the detriment of having good governance. This is the problem we have had, unfortunately, the past five years, and this is the problem we might be headed for the next five years."

Raz Mohammed Dalili, a member of Abdullah's campaign team and a former governor, put it another way: "As long as Mr. Karzai has the leadership, there won't be any unity in this country."

To campaign- and strife-weary Afghans interviewed on a recent morning in Khair Khana, however, an Abdullah-Karzai handshake did not sound so bad. In Khair Khana, the West-- with its support for a democratic process widely seen as being marred by rampant fraud -- is the main subject of scorn.

"If there is a coalition government, we will be happy. That will prevent violence," said Agha Shireen, 25, an Abdullah supporter who was hawking round loaves of golden bread. "All we care about is security and peace."

U.N. Deputy in Kabul Leaves in Dispute With Boss Over Flawed Vote - washingtonpost.com

Image by Army.mil via Flickr

By Pamela Constable and Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, September 16, 2009

KABUL, Sept. 15 -- The deputy head of the U.N. mission here has abruptly left the country after a dispute with the mission's Norwegian chief over whether to publicly denounce Afghanistan's election commission for not discounting clearly fraudulent votes cast in favor of President Hamid Karzai's reelection.

Mounting tensions over the country's tainted presidential vote have divided and frustrated Afghanistan's international backers, and endangered President Obama's troubled war strategy as his administration debates whether to deploy additional U.S. troops.

American diplomat Peter W. Galbraith and his Norwegian boss, U.N. Special Representative Kai Eide, disagreed so strongly over the right post-election approach that they were unable to keep working together, prompting Galbraith's departure from the country Sunday.

"I suggested to him, and he agreed, that it would be best" to leave the country, Galbraith said in a telephone interview Tuesday. "It's fair to say [Eide] didn't have confidence that I would follow his policy line on this, and I had disagreements with his policy line that were best resolved by leaving." A senior U.N. official here said Galbraith "will be back."

On Thursday, Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission is set to announce final results from the Aug. 20 vote. It is expected to declare that Karzai has won reelection with about 54 percent of the vote and that his top challenger, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah, has lost with about 28 percent.

But the polling process has been irreparably tainted. A separate, U.N.-sponsored Electoral Complaints Commission has found evidence of fraud at polls throughout the country, and the panel said Tuesday that about 10 percent of the entire vote, from 2,500 polling stations, needs to be recounted on suspicion of fraud. This might affect enough ballots to lower Karzai's tally below the 50 percent plus one vote he needs to avoid a runoff with Abdullah.

The question that has increasingly divided Afghan experts and international officials here is whether to pursue the time-consuming fraud investigations to the end -- leaving a weakened Karzai, estranged from Afghanistan's international backers, in power during months of political drift and potential violence until a possible spring runoff -- or to seek an unlikely political compromise among Afghans to avoid a second round of voting.

Divisions over what to do exist even within the Obama administration, which is under increasing pressure to demonstrate to a skeptical Congress and American public that its Afghanistan strategy is working. That strategy depends on having a viable, democratically elected partner in the Afghan government.

The divisions are paralleled in disagreements among NATO allies fighting in Afghanistan that began long before the presidential vote. Some European countries have lowered their troop commitments to Afghanistan, while the United States is increasing the size of its force. A recent U.S. airstrike in northern Afghanistan that killed at least 70 people -- including some civilians -- was requested by German ground forces that the Americans complain have not been active enough in patrolling the area.

In the post-election dispute, sources close to the United Nations said Galbraith represented the view that the fraud probe must be fully carried out, along with a partial recount that the complaints panel ordered, even if this leads to a delayed runoff. That view jibes with the vision of Grant Kippen, the Canadian who heads the complaints commission, that building a democratic process matters more than who wins this election.

Germany's foreign minister said Tuesday that his government would press for a full investigation of the fraud complaints, saying the new Afghan president needed to be "recognized and respected by the entire population." Other European governments have backed off from their initial praise for the election, saying that unless the new government is seen as legitimate, it will be hard for them to justify continued military involvement.

But another, more pragmatic school of thought, which Eide has publicly endorsed in the past, argues that a runoff may be too difficult and dangerous to hold. The urgent need to establish a new government while Afghanistan and its Western allies are fighting a war against Taliban insurgents, this line of thinking goes, requires finding a political solution such as a compromise between Karzai and Abdullah.

Diplomatic sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said U.S. officials here had been frustrated in their efforts to press Karzai to acknowledge the widespread fraud and to accept the possibility of a runoff, or to make a deal in which he would remain as a titular president but be held more accountable for his actions and allow himself to be surrounded by foreign, technocratic advisers.

The sources said Karzai has been privately trying to win over European diplomats, including Eide, suggesting that they not be overly concerned about the fraud problem and give him full support on the grounds that he has won a decisive mandate.

The dispute leading directly to Galbraith's departure began Sept. 2, when he called the Afghan election commission to protest its decision to abandon agreed-upon guidelines under which it would not count any ballots submitted by local officials from "ghost" polling places, where no voters showed up because of security concerns, sources said. The United Nations, Galbraith said, would not remain silent in the face of the decision.

Within 90 minutes, Karzai had summoned U.S. Ambassador Karl W. Eikenberry to protest Galbraith's action; Foreign Minister Rangin Dadfar Spanta summoned Galbraith to a meeting that afternoon. Eide, sources said, told his deputy he disagreed with his intervention and made his views known to the Afghan government.

On Sept. 7, the election commission decided to go ahead with the ghost tally, and it announced the next day that Karzai, with more than 90 percent of the vote counted, had passed the 50 percent mark.

DeYoung reported from Washington.

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Abdullah Abdullah's Unmentioned History

By Barbara Crossette

August 24, 2009

Abdullah Abdullah, the most powerful challenger to Hamid Karzai in the presidential elections in Afghanistan, argues on his campaign website that "there can be no greater priority than regaining the trust of the Afghan people," a trust he now claims is being squandered again in voter fraud by his rivals.

While the votes are still being counted and the Electoral Complaints Commission is urging candidates not to rush into predictions and accusations, Abdullah, an ophthalmologist by training, might well be a little more forthcoming and expansive about his own history and what that would mean to his turbulent country should he be elected, or even force Karzai (no democratic paragon either) into a bitter runoff.

A political chameleon (a widely encountered species in Pakistan and India also), Abdullah, born in 1960, was a close adviser to Ahmed Shah Massoud, a legendary Tajik mujahedeen commander from the Panjshir Valley who served as defense minister of the government set up after the fall of the pro-Soviet leader, Najibullah.

Abdullah was also an informal chief spokesman for the loose coalition of mujahedeen warlords known as the Northern Alliance, which had driven Soviet forces out of the country with considerable American help. Then, with Washington's back turned, they began fighting among themselves, laying waste to large swaths of Kabul and creating so much havoc and violence in the countryside that by 1995-1996 Afghans greeted the arrival of the Taliban with relief. Trust of the people?

The mujahedeen "government" of the post-Soviet, pre-Taliban 1990s was known for its efforts to deprive women, particularly urban women, of the gains they had made under communist governments. When the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women was held in Beijing in 1995, Afghan women were forbidden to send a delegation. In the Afghan countryside, women were not safe from either civil war or sexual assault.

One of the most conservative of the mujahedeen leaders, Abdul Rasul Sayyaf (who tried to ban all female journalists from his news conferences), not the Taliban, was the first to welcome Osama bin Laden to Afghanistan, according to Kathy Gannon, a Canadian who reported from Afghanistan for eighteen years and wrote one of the best books on the events of recent decades, I Is for Infidel.

Abdullah was officially the spokesman of the mujahedeen government's defense ministry in Kabul from 1992 to 1996, when the Taliban, a very different movement than it is today, took control of the capital. Abdullah then became a roving global spokesman for what the mujahedeen called their exiled Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. He appeared to be cut out for the task, as all of us who encountered him noticed.

"He always seemed more diplomat than warrior," Gannon wrote. "Abdullah has the uncanny ability of knowing and saying what foreigners want to hear, regardless of whether it's true."

As Kabul was falling to the Taliban, Abdullah was telling reporters that the Talibs had been repulsed; but he knew the city was lost, and he was actually "getting ready to run," Gannon said. He wasn't gone for too long. After the United States invaded Afghanistan in 2001 and essentially gave Kabul back to the murderous mujahedeen, Abdullah became part of the team charged with rebuilding the country. Later, when a transitional government was formed and an election held, he was Karzai's foreign minister. Now he is his most outspoken foe.

Abdullah's ability to resurface in any political climate, along with other mujahedeen figures, is symbolic of the situation that has alienated many Pashtuns, the largest and now most mistrustful ethnic group in Afghanistan, a point made by Amin Tarzi in a collection of scholarly essays, The Taliban and the Crisis of Afghanistan. After 2001, the Pashtuns got a Pashtu president, Karzai, but he had no militia of his own and has been surrounded, obstructed and compromised by Tajik and Uzbek warlords.

Enter Abdullah, all things to all men. His official bio says that he was born in Kabul to a devout Muslim family and that his father (a former Pashtu politician) was from Kandahar, a Pashtun/former Taliban stronghold, where Abdullah needs votes. In an election year, the bio doesn't mention that his mother was a Tajik.

About Barbara Crossette

Barbara Crossette, United Nations correspondent for The Nation, is a former New York Times correspondent and bureau chief in Asia and at the UN.

She is the author of So Close to Heaven: The Vanishing Buddhist Kingdoms of the Himalayas, published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1995 and in paperback by Random House/Vintage Destinations in 1996, and a collection of travel essays about colonial resort towns that are still attracting visitors more than a century after their creation, The Great Hill Stations of Asia, published by Westview Press in 1998 and in paperback by Basic Books in 1999. In 2000, she wrote a survey of India and Indian-American relations, India: Old Civilization in a New World, for the Foreign Policy Association in New York. She is also the author of India Facing the 21st Century, published by Indiana University Press in 1993.

Karzai Wins Afghan Warlords’ Support as Others Fear the Cost

By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.

KABUL, Afghanistan — When Marshal Muhammad Qasim Fahim was interim vice president and defense minister after the United States invasion in 2001, his tanks overlooked Kabul and he was widely seen as more powerful than the American-backed president, Hamid Karzai.

When Afghans finally got a chance to elect their president for the first time, in 2004, Mr. Karzai cast off Mr. Fahim, a Tajik warlord, winning the election as well as praise from Western governments that were worried Mr. Fahim might order his tanks into the streets and seize power.

Now, in the campaign for the Aug. 20 presidential election, Mr. Karzai has taken a different tack: Over the pleading of Western officials, he picked Mr. Fahim as first vice president on his ticket.

The reversal, critics say, is emblematic of the campaign by Mr. Karzai, who in angling to keep a hold on power has lined up half a dozen warlords who have guaranteed their political support in exchange for back-room deals.

While the precise nature of such deals is not known, Western officials, Afghan politicians and nongovernmental organizations contend that they include promises of protection from prosecution, the awarding of cabinet ministries and governorships, the creation of provinces to benefit one ethnic group, and the freeing of major drug traffickers.

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Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

Against Western wishes, Mr. Fahim, center, is running for first vice president on Mr. Karzai’s ticket in the Aug. 20 elections.

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Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

Mr. Karzai’s backers include Abdul Rab Rassoul Sayyaf, whose militia killed Hazara civilians in western Kabul in 1993.

This is not the first time that Afghans or their American patrons have cut deals with the warlords — whose widespread looting and killing of civilians in the 1990s helped spur the rise of the Taliban. After the Taliban were driven from power, the American government funneled millions of dollars and military support to the warlords.

But now many Afghans and foreign observers say the ties to warlords may win Mr. Karzai the election, but cost him and his country dearly, leaving him badly compromised and the central government greatly weakened.

“It was necessary from the U.S. point of view to have armed people on the ground” when the focus was toppling the Taliban, said Thomas Ruttig, a veteran United Nations diplomat and now a director of the Afghanistan Analysts Network, a nonprofit research group. “But if you are now bringing in warlords and other people who have an interest in leaving things unstable, you are undermining yourself.”

Today Mr. Karzai’s warlord backers include Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, the Uzbek commander whose men are accused of killing hundreds of Taliban prisoners of war in 2001 and who is now vying to regain wider control of northern Afghanistan; Hajji Muhammad Moheqiq and Karim Khalili, warlords from the Hazara Shiite minority ethnic group; and Abdul Rab Rassoul Sayyaf, whose militia killed hundreds of Hazara civilians in western Kabul in 1993.

Another warlord supporter, Gul Agha Sherzai, who has been implicated in drug-related corruption and is now governor of Nangarhar Province, could “possibly” become governor of Kandahar, “or maybe a minister,” said Mr. Karzai’s campaign manager, Hajji Din Muhammad.

“I’m sure that whoever the mujahedeen support will win the election,” Mr. Muhammad said, referring to the warlords.

Western officials are watching closely. “I expect an understanding of the fact that we need fewer warlords and more competent ministers,” said Kai Eide, leader of the United Nations mission in Afghanistan. He said that Western governments were encouraged by reform-minded appointees to several ministries, including interior and finance, and that it had been made clear to Mr. Karzai that the trend must continue. But he declined to say if the president had addressed the warlords’ role after the election.

“If what we expect is not understood and not respected, then I think it will have consequences in terms of the enthusiasm of the international community,” Mr. Eide said. “We have to put the warlord period behind us.”

To many Afghans, serious damage has already been done. They say that the renewed association with warlords — including support by some warlords for one of Mr. Karzai’s challengers, Abdullah Abdullah, a former foreign minister — means that the powerful will not be held to account, particularly those accused of gross human rights abuses.

“It’s very easy to say, ‘I’ll bring reform and justice,’ ” said Dr. Sima Samar, chairwoman of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission and a cabinet minister in Mr. Karzai’s first interim government. “But where is the accountability? If you have these people around you, it shows you are not serious about justice.”

More recently, Mr. Karzai has defended his warlord political supporters as national heroes who fought the Russians and the Taliban. And Mr. Muhammad, his campaign manger, said: “Anyone who wants to implement a program in Afghanistan cannot implement it without the support of the mujahedeen. They still have lots of influence in their areas.”

When Mr. Karzai’s warlord strategy emerged this spring, it seemed he had all but secured his re-election. But many analysts now believe he may not gain the 50 percent of the vote he needs to win the election outright and could face a runoff.

The election may demonstrate whether the warlords’ influence has begun to wane. In 2004, when Mr. Karzai won with 55.4 percent of the vote, Mr. Moheqiq and General Dostum won a combined 21.6 percent.

Mr. Moheqiq and Mr. Khalili, who led militias during the civil war and the fight against the Taliban, are believed to have won a promise to carve new provinces from Hazara-dominated districts in Ghazni and Wardak Provinces, Western officials said.

That would bolster the national power of the Hazara leaders and could set off regional conflicts with Hazara rivals. Mr. Moheqiq also said Mr. Karzai promised him control of five ministries.

Mr. Muhammad said he knew nothing about such deals.

But for Western officials, it is the dealings with General Dostum, known for his brutality, that are the most worrisome.

The general, who denies any “intentional massacre” of Taliban prisoners in 2001, had been appointed a senior military adviser by Mr. Karzai. He left the country last year after assaulting a rival, but was declared free to return after announcing support for Mr. Karzai. American officials have sought to delay that return.

General Dostum’s deal with Mr. Karzai could lead to a power struggle in the north. But Mr. Abdullah has claimed recently that he has support from General Dostum, though officials from the general’s party deny that.

American officials were also angered by Mr. Karzai’s pardon in April of five men from Nangarhar Province convicted of smuggling 260 pounds of heroin in 2007. The men had been prosecuted by a special task force, with lawyers tutored by American and NATO counterparts.

The task force is a model for the justice system that Western officials want for Afghanistan, but the pardon sent a signal that even major drug traffickers with the right connections could escape. One pardoned convict is a nephew of Mr. Muhammad, who is also a former Kabul governor.

According to the decree signed by Mr. Karzai and obtained by The New York Times, the men were pardoned “out of respect” for their family members, who dominate politics in a broad section of eastern Afghanistan.

In an interview, Mr. Muhammad said he had never lobbied Mr. Karzai for the pardon.

Abdul Waheed Wafa, Sangar Rahimi and Carlotta Gall contributed reporting.

In One Afghan Province, Votes for President Could Turn on Loss of Poppy Income

By Pamela Constable
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, July 21, 2009

FAIZABAD, Afghanistan -- The economic fortunes of Badakhshan province, a remote and wildly beautiful corner of far northeastern Afghanistan, have risen and fallen over the past seven years with the production of opium poppies.

Not long ago, emerald fields with nodding pink poppy flowers were everywhere, and Badakhshan was one of the country's fastest-growing poppy producers. Today, its golden hills are dotted with freshly harvested wheat stacks, and its 95 percent drop in opium production last year has been hailed as a model by international anti-drug officials.

For many communities, however, the loss of poppy income has meant a return to desperate rural poverty. As national elections approach on Aug. 20, with President Hamid Karzai seeking reelection against a field of 40 challengers, the decision among Badakhshan's voters rests partly on whether they give his government and its international backers credit or blame for the end of the poppy boom.

"The authorities promised our people jobs and projects if they stopped growing poppy, but that never happened," said a teacher here in the provincial capital, who gave her name as Aria. "We know that opium is un-Islamic and makes people addicted, but what about the farmers and their families? When we grew poppy, the people were doing well. Now they are suffering."

Aria was one of several thousand people at a recent campaign rally for Karzai's most prominent challenger, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah. He spent a weekend this month barnstorming Badakhshan in a battered, Soviet-built military helicopter that crossed the snowcapped Hindu Kush mountains, swooped into narrow valleys and landed in wheat fields across the vertiginous province.

In speeches in village mosques, soccer stadiums and shady groves beside rushing mountain streams, Abdullah made vague promises to bring jobs, economic development and better government. But his major selling point was his role in Afghanistan's "holy war" against the Soviet Union during the 1980s, when he was an aide to the now-deceased mujaheddin leader Ahmed Shah Massoud.

"The people here know me, because I used to come on horseback and bring medical supplies in the early days of jihad," said Abdullah, 50, an ophthalmologist who graduated from medical school in Kabul in 1983 and became an adviser to Massoud two years later. Karzai named him foreign minister in 2002, but he was abruptly removed from the cabinet in 2006. Though fond of finely tailored Western suits during his run as foreign minister, Abdullah dresses in the locally popular salwar-kameez -- a tunic with baggy trousers -- when he is out on the campaign trail.

In each community where the green helicopter touched down -- it was provided by the central government in accord with official election policy -- crowds hoisted posters of Abdullah with Massoud, who was killed in 2001. His remarks included tributes to local martyred comrades and sentimental stories from the long-ago war, and he was constantly interrupted by impassioned shouts of "Long live jihad!" from men and boys in the crowd.

"We believe in jihad, and we do not want our Islamic values to be destroyed by the foreigners," said an elder named Rahim in the town of Jurm, who introduced the candidate and referred to his wool cap, traditionally worn by northern Islamic fighters. "As long as the pakul is on his head, he will follow the way of jihad and stand up for all the mujaheddin."

Yet despite their emotional identification with Abdullah, many people interviewed after or outside the rallies said they planned to vote for Karzai, who has ruled the country with strong international backing since early 2002. They said that the president has not visited their province in a long time but that he is a proven national leader with access to large amounts of foreign assistance.

"I would say 80 percent of the people in this district support Karzai," said Mohammed Issah, 36, a mullah in Baharak, a town surrounded by wheat fields and fruit orchards. "His government has brought us roads and security. Our people are living in harmony, and there is no more poppy, which we know is the enemy of our religion. It is our tradition to be hospitable to all guests, but that does not say how we will vote."

In Faizabad, a sleepy town that is largely inaccessible in winter, opinions were mixed. Some inhabitants bitterly blamed Karzai's government for the lack of economic development, noting that the local airstrip is still a Soviet-made metal platform, the main road is only now being paved and donkeys remain the principal form of transportation.

Several women here said that the state of provincial health care is a disgrace and that many pregnant patients die in childbirth because it is so difficult to reach hospitals. For years, according to U.N. reports, the levels of infant and maternal mortality in Badakhshan have been the highest in Afghanistan and on a par with those in many sub-Saharan African countries.

Other residents disputed the criticisms, saying that conditions have improved noticeably during the Karzai era and that international charities have been able to operate safely because the region is more secure than many other parts of the country.

"In the past, we had no roads or cars, and now we have a lot of them. In the past, we had a lot of poppy, and now it's gone," said Abdul Haq, 43, a shopkeeper who had pasted a campaign poster of Karzai to his wooden shutters. "We hear there is fighting in other places, but here we have 100 percent security. That is enough for me."

In some ways, Badakhshan's unusual geography has created a political anomaly. Its remoteness has made it both virtually impervious to the predations of Taliban insurgents based in the distant south and exceptionally devoted to its local leaders.

The governor, a Badakhshan tribal elder named Abdul Majid, has been credited with spearheading the anti-poppy drive by personally appealing to farmers across the province. The campaign in Badakhshan has proved more successful than in many other parts of Afghanistan, a country that produces more than 90 percent of the world's illicit opium.

Although Majid was appointed by Karzai, he has said he received little help from the central government in fighting drugs. Roadside signs in several towns touted the U.S. government's "alternative livelihoods" program for poppy farmers, but community elders complained that they had received scant assistance to develop legal crops.

"We have no work here, and all our young men go to Iran to find jobs," said Abdul Samad, an elder in Kesham district who hosted a picnic for Abdullah in a thriving grove of poplar, pear and pine trees. But Samad said that the grove had been funded by a Norwegian charity and that local farmers had neither the seeds nor the irrigation to replicate it. "We need a strong Muslim leader, a real mujahed, to bring us jobs and justice," he said.