US urges Karzai to set up anti-corruption panel: Report
Washington: The Obama administration is pressing Afghan President Hamid Karzai to set up an anti-corruption commission, The New York Times said Tuesday.
The panel would establish "strict accountability" for national and provincial government officials, the Times reported, citing senior officials from US President Barack Obama's administration.
Some US and European officials are also seeking the arrests of what one US representative termed "the more blatantly corrupt" people in the Afghan government, it added.
"A couple of high-profile heads on a platter would be nice," a European diplomat involved in Afghanistan told the newspaper.
Among potential persons of interest was Ahmed Wali Karzai, the president's brother who is suspected of harbouring important links to Afghanistan's booming illegal opium trade
in the southern Taliban hotbed of Kandahar.
The Times also cited former defence minister Marshal Muhammad Qasim Fahim, a Karzai running mate suspected of drug trafficking, and General Abdul Rashid Dostum, a feared warlord accused of being involved in the killings of thousands of Taliban prisoners shortly after the US-led invasion in 2001.
The names, however, were not provided by US officials and were culled from the international community's "wish list," it said.
Bureau Report