US pulls out Karzai's
military bodyguards
Special forces who foiled assassination attempt
on Afghan leader replaced by private security
guards
Peter Beaumont, foreign affairs editor
Sunday November 24, 2002
The Observer
He is the most vulnerable head of state in the
world - Hamid
Karzai, the President of Afghanistan. al-Qaeda would like to
kill him. Rival warlords want him dead. In the
internecine politics of Afghanistan, even some of
his friends would probably like to see him out of
the way. Karzai
survived an assassination attempt in
the southern city of Kandahar in September when a
gunman opened fire on his car.
That attack, one of a number on his life, was
foiled by his United States military bodyguards.
But now the special forces men who saved Karzai's life
have been quietly replaced by security guards
from one of America's most controversial private
military corporations, DynCorp.
On Friday the State Department confirmed the
use of a private security detail managed by
officers of its Diplomatic Security Service.
On the day it emerged that DynCorp had taken
over most of the close protection duties for
Karzai, the Vice-President and Defence Minister, Mohammad Qasim
Fahim, survived an attempt on his life in
Kabul by al-Qaeda.
According to Afghan security officers in Kabul
yesterday, the original target of the
assassination attempt had been Karzai.
Karzai's
absence until recently in the US scuppered that
plan, and al-Qaeda had turned its attention to
the Vice-President. This revelation is certain to
raise concern over security arrangements for key
figures in Afghanistan's fledgling government,
including Karzai, whom President George Bush has
vowed to support.
Officials at the State Department insisted to
The Observer last week that Karzai would
receive the same high level of protection from
the Diplomatic Security Service-led detail - with
its DynCorp security personnel.
DynCorp has been involved in a series of
recent high-profile scandals. A substantial
financial backer of Bush's election campaign, the
company employs almost 25,000 staff, many of them
former US military personnel, working in areas
from security to aircraft maintenance.
While much of DynCorp's work is of a
non-controversial nature, it has become embroiled
in a series of damaging allegations involving
personnel in sensitive missions overseas.
DynCorp personnel contracted to the United
Nations police service in Bosnia were implicated
in buying and selling prostitutes, including a
girl as young as 12. Several DynCorp employees
were also accused of videotaping the rape of one
of the women.
When a fellow DynCorp employee blew the
whistle on the sex ring, she was dismissed by the
company for drawing attention to their
misbehaviour, according to the ruling of a
British industrial tribunal earlier this year.
According to a recent article in New Republic
magazine, DynCorp staff allegedly contracted to
the CIA were involved in the accidental shooting
down of a plane carrying US missionaries in Peru
which had wrongly been identified as a drug
smuggling aircraft.
In 2001 an employee of the company contracted
to work on Plan Colombia, the drugs eradication
plan instigated by President Bill Clinton, was
accused of trying to smuggle a heroin derivative
into the US, although the company insisted that
it had carried out its own investigation and
found no wrongdoing. Critics of the increasingly
widespread use by the Department of Defense and
the State Department of private corporations such
as DynCorp are most concerned about the lack of
accountability of the privatised operations being
conducted in support of US policy.
Defending the decision to remove Karzai's
special forces bodyguard, a spokesman for the
Department of Defense said the decision to recall
the US troops had been intended to take place
around the time of the assassination attempt in
September, but that the switchover had been put
off because of the incident.
DynCorp refused to comment, telling The
Observer it had been 'gagged' over talking about
the Afghan deal.
It was left to the State Department to offer a
rationale. 'Responsibility for Mr Karzai's
security was handed over earlier this month to
the Diplomatic Security Service,' said an
official, speaking anonymously. 'DynCorp
personnel are involved in the detail that is
being managed by the Diplomatic Security Service
officials who have long experience in providing
this kind of protection.'
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