Afghan MPs want foreign spies out of presidential palace

Afghan lawmakers say President Hamid Karzai should not allow the country’s enemies to have any place in the presidential palace.
A number of parliament members said on Sunday that foreign-backed spies are operating in the office of the Afghan president.

“Specific networks of foreign spies are appointed on the orders of the president and they go to the extent of infiltrating into the cabinet which is really worrying,” Tolonews quoted lawmaker Abdul Hanan Haqyoun as saying.

On April 29, the US daily The New York Times reported that American CIA spy agency had been bribing Afghan officials and warlords in the past decade with tens of millions of dollars in secret cash money in continuing efforts to win favors and maintain influence over internal affairs of the country.

The report further claimed that most of the American bribe money distributed in Afghanistan by its spy agency are “packed into suitcases, backpacks and… plastic shopping bags” and dropped off “every month or so” at the offices of Karzai, highlighting the “vast scale” of delivering “off-the-books cash” payments that have “a far greater impact on everyday governing” of the nation.

The daily cited “some American officials” as saying, “the cash has fueled corruption and empowered warlords, undermining Washington’s exit strategy from Afghanistan.”

“The biggest source of corruption in Afghanistan was the United States,” the daily noted, quoting an unnamed American official.

The United States and its allies entered the war in Afghanistan in October 2001 as part of Washington’s so-called war on terror.