Afghan interior minister to resign

One of the most prominent faces in Afghan president Hamid Karzai’s Cabinet, Ahmad Ali Jalali, who had struggled to shake-up the Interior Ministry and combat Afghanistan’s booming drugs trade, announced his resignation today.

Karzai’s office played down the significance of Jalali’s decision to quit, ostensibly to pursue an academic career in the US. The president’s chief of staff, Jawed Ludin, denied Jalali had disagreements with Karzai on fighting drugs.

“It’s a fight the president is solidly committed to,” Ludin said.

Jalali, a 63-year-old former journalist, has been popular with Western governments since his appointment in January 2003, although there was disappointment that he failed to push reforms of the police and provincial administrations.

He told Afghan television today there were “various reasons” for his resignation, primarily a desire for the “more relaxed” life as an academic.

“This is something I’ve worked on all my life,” he told private Tolo network. An Interior Ministry statement quoted him as denying conflicts with Karzai and praising the president.

But Jalali had expressed frustration about the alleged involvement of influential people in the drugs trade, even as the government has stepped up a campaign over the past year to crack down on the world’s largest drugs industry.

Jalali’s concerns were echoed in June by Counter-drugs Minister Habibullah Qaderi, who told AP that some provincial governors and police chiefs are suspected of involvement in the drugs trade, but none are being investigated because of a “lack of evidence.” He declined to name names.

The minister said many of the trafficking networks’ leaders are also warlords, including commanders in the US-backed Afghan force that drove the Taliban from power in 2001.

Karzai has declared a war on drugs amid concern the country is in danger of becoming a drugs-state. There was a marked reduction this year in the area cultivated with opium poppy – the raw material of heroin – and numerous raids on drug laboratories. But the UN estimates Afghanistan still produced 4,519 tons of opium, about 87% of the global supply.

Kabir Ranjbar, a political analyst and former head of Afghanistan’s Academy of Sciences, said Jalali’s attempts to reform the Interior Ministry were stymied by Karzai’s government and by powerful warlords who have held top provincial posts since the Taliban’s ousting.

“Jalali wanted to bring some reform in the Interior Ministry, such as changing the governors, but they didn’t help him, they didn’t let him, and he became demoralised,” said Ranjbar, who heads his own liberal political party.

Ludin said Karzai had not yet decided on Jalali’s successor. The appointment is subject to approval by the new National Assembly, voted for in the September 18 elections, the country’s next key step toward democracy.

With 9.2% of ballots counted from Kabul province, Karzai’s top challengers in last year’s presidential election – Mohammed Mohaqeq and Yunus Qanooni – had the most votes, according to results posted on the Web site of the UN-Afghan election board.

Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, a powerful former guerrilla leader who Human Rights Watch says is implicated in rights abuses, was running fourth in the province, which includes the Afghan capital.

Kabul will have 33 representatives in the 249-seat Wolesi Jirga, or lower house of parliament. Full provisional results are expected by October 4 and official results by October 22.

The government and its Western backers hope the elections will help restore stability after decades of war. It could also give a political voice to opponents of the US-backed president, who was elected to a five-year term last October.

While there was little election-related violence on polling day, unidentified gunmen shot a parliamentary candidate and supporter of Mohaqeq, Ashraf Ramazan, as he drove in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif today, police said.

Much of southern and eastern Afghanistan remains insecure. Violence has escalated this year, with more than 1,300 people killed, including hundreds of Taliban-led militants, during the past seven months.

Militants firing rocket-propelled grenades and small arms killed one US soldier and wounded another yesterday near the southern city of Kandahar during a ground assault by Afghan and US forces, the US military said. Two militants were killed and a third wounded.

Also yesterday, a US base came under mortar fire near the eastern city of Asadabad, killing one US Marine. Coalition forces responded with mortars and air strikes, but there was no immediate word on militant casualties, a military statement said.

The fatalities raised the number of American service members killed in or around the country since 2001 to 197.