Afghan interior minister resigns over drug trade

Afghanistan’s interior minister, one of the most prominent faces in President Hamid Karzai’s Cabinet, has announced his resignation after struggling to combat Afghanistan’s booming drug trade.

Karzai’s office played down the significance of Ahmad Ali 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 narcotics.

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

Jalali has expressed frustration about the alleged involvement of senior officials in Afghanistan’s drug trade, even as the government has stepped up a campaign over the past year to crack down on the world’s largest narcotics industry.

Jalali’s concerns were echoed in June by Counternarcotics Minister Habibullah Qaderi, who said that some provincial governors and police chiefs are suspected of involvement in the drug 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 Afghanistan is in danger of becoming a narco-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.

Last month, UN anti-drug chief Antonio Maria Costa praised Karzai for trying to eradicate drug production, but said some provincial governors and other officials were involved in the drug trade and should be removed.

Jalali, a 63-year-old former journalist, had been popular with Western governments since his appointment in January 2003, despite his inability to push through reforms of the police and provincial administrations.