New York Times reports that Ahmed Wali Karzai, the younger brother of Hamid Karzai, is being paid for 'a variety of services'

• Julian Borger, diplomatic editor
• guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 28 October 2009 13.50 GMT
• Article history

Ahmad Wali Karzai, brother of the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai. Photograph: AP

Ahmed Wali Karzai, the younger brother of the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, has been on the CIA's payroll for almost eight years, it was reported today.

The New York Times, quoting unnamed current and former US officials, reported that the CIA was paying the president's brother, long alleged to be a powerful druglord, for "a variety of services".

The report said these included the recruitment of a paramilitary group to do US bidding in and around Kandahar, where he is the head of the provincial council.

The paramilitaries – known as the Kandahar Strike Force – have been accused of conducting rogue operations and score-settling.

They are based in a Kandahar compound that Ahmed Wali Karzai also rents to the CIA and US special forces as an operations base, the report said.

The president's brother was also reported to act as a middle man for contacts between the CIA and Taliban loyalists as part of attempts to persuade them to change sides.

He has long been alleged to be involved in the opium trade in southern Afghanistan, and the CIA's links with him are a cause of deep divisions in Barack Obama's administration, the New York Times said.

Ahmed Wali Karzai denied being involved in drug trafficking, or being paid by the CIA, in an interview with the newspaper.

"I don't know anyone under the name of the CIA," he said. "I have never received any money from any organisation. I help, definitely. I help other Americans wherever I can. This is my duty as an Afghan."

Speaking to the Council on Foreign Relations on Monday, the US senator John Kerry said he had asked US intelligence and law enforcement for solid evidence against Ahmed Wali Karzai but had not been given any.

"I have requested from our intelligence sources and law enforcement folks the smoking gun, the evidence. Show me – what do we know?" he said.

"And I'll tell you right now, folks – nobody has given me the sort of hard and fast 'Here's what we heard them say' or 'Here's what we've caught him doing' or 'Here's what he's involved in.' So this swirls around."

Kerry said there were "things that Ahmed Wali Karzai has done that haven't been helpful. There are things he does that are very helpful for us".

He added: "We need to look hard at the balance of how we can best manage Kandahar and that particular region."

The report of CIA ties with Ahmed Wali Karzai comes at a time when the Obama administration is contemplating increasing US troop numbers in Afghanistan.

It will also revive debate on the CIA's role.

The agency was heavily criticised for its links with rightwing paramilitaries and drug lords in Latin America in the 1970s and 80s.

But after the September 11 attacks, critics argued that it had become too timid and was so constrained by rules and political correctness that it was virtually unable to gather intelligence in troubled parts of the world.

I'd have hardly though that this was a surprise, especially seeing how Hamid Karzai got to be president in the first place...