Afghan interior minister resigning from Cabinet
KABUL, Afghanistan – Interior Minister Ali Ahmad Jalali, one of the most respected members of President Hamid Karzai’s Cabinet, resigned Tuesday after complaining for months that some senior officials were involved in drugs and corruption.
Jalali announced his resignation in an interview with a private Afghan television station, but was evasive about his reasons for stepping down.
“I will not work as Interior minister any more,” Jalali told Tolo TV. “Maybe there are reasons for this and maybe not, but one of the main reasons is that I wish to resume my academic research. I was involved in academia in the past and I feel really comfortable in that field.”
Jalali’s spokesman said the former minister would explain his resignation at a news conference today. Khaleeq Ahmad, a presidential spokesman, insisted there is no friction between Jalali and Karzai.
“This is something he’s been wanting to do for a long time,” Ahmad said. “He has announced it on TV and he’s now sure that he wants to leave and pursue an academic career in Washington.”
Jalali headed the effort to build a national police force, which is essential to expanding security to the large areas of the country that are still unstable.
He also vowed to go after corrupt officials and drug barons. But officers in the counter-narcotics police echoed Jalali’s complaints that senior officials in Kabul, the capital, and in the provinces profit from the heroin trade.
As one of a few skilled technocrats in a government hindered by former warlords, Jalali’s departure is a blow to Karzai as he tries to build trustworthy institutions and end a stubborn Taliban-led insurgency.
Jalali is an Afghan American and former head of the Voice of America’s Pashtu- and Persian-language services. He graduated in 1964 from the U.S. Army Infantry Advance Course at Fort Benning in Georgia was an adviser to Afghan rebels during the 1980s war against Soviet troops occupying Afghanistan, based in neighboring Pakistan.
He returned to Afghanistan from the United States to become Karzai’s interior minister in early 2003.