Afghanistan: Hamid Karzai Aide in Corruption Case Linked to CIA

An aide to Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai at the center of a corruption case has been on the payroll of the Central Intelligence Agency for years, officials in Kabul and Washington say.

Mohammed Zia Salehi, head of Afghanistan's National Security Council, was arrested in July and then freed when Karzai intervened. The CIA is not suspected of playing any role in his release, the New York Times said in its report Thursday on Salehi, but his links to the agency raise doubts about the Obama administration's struggle against corruption in the Afghan government.

Salehi was nabbed after investigators caught him accepting a bribe -- a car for his son -- in exchange for getting in the way of a U.S.-backed probe into a company believed to be shipping billions of dollars out of the country for Afghan officials, insurgents and drug smugglers. But after Salehi made a call to Karzai from his jail cell, he was let go. And Karzai has now threatened to limit the power of an anti-corruption unit that arrested Salehi, the Times said. Karzai's half brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, who is suspected of playing a role in the country's opium trade, has also been reported to be in the pay of the CIA.

A CIA spokesman declined comment on Salehi but told the Times that "reckless allegations from anonymous sources" don't change the fact that the agency "works hard to advance the full range of U.S. policy objectives in Afghanistan." Another U.S. official said, "If we decide as a country that we'll never deal with anyone in Afghanistan who might down the road -- and certainly not at our behest -- put his hand in the till, we can all come home right now. If you want intelligence in a war zone, you're not going to get it from Mother Teresa or Mary Poppins."

But others in the administration think the U.S. must maintain pressure in the battle against corruption in Kabul or risk seeing ordinary Afghans turn to the Taliban when they lose faith in the government.