Savouring success: 2,300 Canadian troops serve in Afghanistan's southwest

Jubilation over the killing, Saturday in Helmand province, of the Taliban’s military commander, Mullah Dadullah, has faded swiftly here in the Afghan capital, suffocated by the stifling atmosphere of crisis that hangs over the Karzai administration.

While Afghan, US and NATO troops are justifiably proud of dealing a body blow to the Taliban, the impact will be far from decisive.

Ideally, the president and his cabinet would seize upon a battlefield coup of this kind to maximize all potential gains, from weakening enemy morale to strengthening the Afghan public’s faith in their government’s ability to prevail. Instead, Hamid Karzai is distracted by growing fractures in his administration, and by the most credible political challenge to his presidency since his installation by the Bush administration as interim leader in December, 2001.

On one front, Karzai has been forced to launch a Supreme Court motion to reverse the sacking of his Foreign Minister by parliament. On another, the president has reportedly asked for the resignation of his hot-headed Attorney General, Abdul Jabar Sabet. But much more seismic disruptions seem certain.

With two cabinet seats already vacant, a wholesale shuffle seems inevitable. This will likely mean the replacement of as many as six other discredited or under-performing ministers. Consequently, the president’s pressing need to rescue his fading authority is taking precedence over the conduct of the war.

“There must be changes,” Senate speaker Sibgatullah Mojadidi tells skyreporter.com. Mojadidi is one of Karzai’s key governmental allies.

“There are many defects in the government. I think President Karzai is looking to these changes, otherwise conditions will become worse. He still has the trust of the people of Afghanistan, but not to the standard of the past - not because of his actions, but because of the non-qualified ministers and governors and police officers he has appointed.”

Against this background, Karzai and his advisors are also groping for a solution to a new coalition of challengers, known as the United Front. As well as some of the president’s better known and capable rivals, such as parliamentary speaker Younis Qanooni and vice-president Ahmed Zia Massoud, this group includes some highly controversial figures from the past.

For example, Afghans can be forgiven for wondering how anti-Soviet mujahideen leaders such as Qasim Fahim and Ismael Khan can form a union with notorious personalities from the Soviet-backed Afghan Communist regime, such as Sayed Gulabzoi. Gulabzoi’s term as Interior Minister in the 1980’s was marked by gross human rights abuses – targeted mainly at the mujahideen and their sympathizers.

Parliamentary sources say Karzai will try to blunt the progress of the United Front by inviting respected former ministers back into his cabinet. Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, the foreign minister so rudely dismissed by Karzai 18 months ago has reportedly been approached, as has Ali Jalali, whose work as Interior Minister came to an abrupt end, say palace insiders, when Karzai failed to support his demands to take concrete measures against corruption.

Sadly, the patchwork regime that seems likely to result from this exercise in governing on the run faces a whole range of stern and immediate tests, among these the outbreak of armed clashes between Afghan and Pakistani forces in the contentious border region.

Coming up on skyreporter.com, where are the political leaders of Afghanistan’s “international friends” in all of this confusion?

Standing behind their troops – several thousand miles behind them.