| Haji Yar Mohammed | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1946 Kandahar |
| Died | 2011 age 65-66 |
| Nationality | Afghan |
| Known for | killed during a raid by US special forces |
Haji Yar Mohammed was a second cousin of Afghan President Hamid Karzai who was killed during a night raid by United States special forces on March 10, 2011. He is from Karz, the same village as the President.
His killing came shortly after Karzai had demanded the US stop using the technique of night raids due to the unacceptable level of deaths of innocent civilians.
NATO spokesman initially claimed the dead man was the father of a suspected of being a Taliban leader, shot because he was holding an AK47. Later NATO spokesmen were to acknowledge confusion, and having multiple incompatible reports of what happened. was accidentally killed.
According to Jon Boone, writing in The Guardian, another of Preside Karzai's brothers, Mahmoud Karzai had speculated that the failed raid had been due to a false denunciation from disgruntled elements of the President's own clan. Mahmoud Karzai said that Yar Mohammed Karzai had killed a cousin thirty years earlier, during the time of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, and he was concerned that man's relatives were angry enough to employ a false denunciation to credulous American intelligence officials in order to get even. He said Yar Mohammed's son Waheed had been shot, as part of the feud, in October 2009.
Both NATO and President Karzai's office said they would initiate inquiries into what really happened.
References
- ^ Alissa J. Rubin, James Risen (March 10, 2011). "Cousin of Afghan President Karzai Is Killed in NATO Raid". The New York Times. Archived from the original on May 16, 2012. Retrieved 2012-03-13.
- ^
Jon Boone (2011-03-10). "Nato troops 'kill Afghan president's cousin': Hamid Karzai and Nato launch separate investigations as nighttime shooting points towards potential intelligence failure". The Guardian. Retrieved 2012-04-13.
Although details are scarce, it appears that a major intelligence failure could have been responsible for the deaths after Nato's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) issued a statement correcting an earlier press release that had claimed a man killed in operations in the area was the father of a Taliban leader.
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Jon Boone (2011-03-10). "US troops' killing of Hamid Karzai's cousin brings claim of 'deep conspiracy': Afghan president's brother says he fears forces acted on false information, possibly given as part of 30-year family blood feud". The Guardian. Retrieved 2012-04-13.
Mahmoud Karzai said he believed there was a "deep conspiracy" behind the killing harking back to a family feud during the jihad against the Soviet Union of the 1980s when Yar Mohammad killed one of his cousins, Khalilullah Karzai. The 30-year-old dispute was widely cited as the reason why Yar Mohammad's 18-year-old son, Waheed, was shot dead in Karz in October 2009.
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