Who is behind NY Times leak on Karzai brother’s CIA ties?

The account cites debriefing notes from DEA interviews in 2006 of Afghan informants maintaining that Ahmed Wali Karzai had benefited from the operation that lured Afghan drug lord Hajji Bashir Noorzai to New York in 2005. Noorzai was convicted on drug and conspiracy charges in New York in 2008, and was sentenced to life in prison this year.

Habibullah Jan, a local military commander and later a member of Parliament from Kandahar, told the DEA in 2006 that Karzai had teamed with Haji Juma Khan to take over a portion of the Noorzai drug business after his arrest. (This Juma Khan is not identified, but he may be the governor of Jowzjan province.)

Ahmed Wali Karzai said in an interview that he cooperated with US, but denied the charges of involvement in the drug trade or receiving money from the CIA: “I don’t know anyone under the name of the CIA. I have never received any money from any organization. I help, definitely. I help other Americans wherever I can. This is my duty as an Afghan.” As for the unseemly June shoot-out in Kandahar: “Matiullah was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”