Kabul, July 12: The powerful half brother of the Afghan President Hamid Karzai was shot in his house this morning at close range by a family bodyguard, according to Karzai family friends who were nearby.
Ahmad Wali Karzai, the provincial council chairman for Kandahar, who was the most powerful person in the province if not in southern Afghanistan, was killed by Sardar Mohammed, a former bodyguard of his older brother Qayyoum.
The bodyguard was killed almost immediately, according, to people close to Ahmad Wali Karzai, who asked not to be identified at this sensitive moment..
The power structure in Kandahar, which is built around the Karzai family and its nexis of connections to powerbrokers across the south including narcotics smugglers, insurgents and others will be shaken and a power struggle is inevitable as members of the Karzai family as well as leaders from other powerful tribes jockey for the upper hand.
-Agencies