See The New Mayor of Marjah first.
Yeah, we sure can pick 'em, huh, America?
No wonder people reject our stooges we send them!
"Key Afghan region’s new leader may have a criminal history" by Joshua Partlow and Jabeen Bhatti, Washington Post | March 7, 2010
MARJA, Afghanistan - The newly appointed top official in Marja, Abdul Zahir Aryan, is the Afghan face of the American-led military offensive.
Different guy, readers.
As the lone government representative in this town, he stands at the center of the next phase of the battle: the fight to build an Afghan government that is more attractive than Taliban rule.
But Zahir, who goes by Haji Zahir, arrived at this position after a tumultuous personal history that American and Afghan officials have not publicly disclosed.
Oh, so IT IS the SAME GUY!!!
WTF is with the CONFUSION, MSM?
Is he a MAYOR, GOVERNOR, or BOTH?
During more than a decade living in Germany, Zahir, 60, served four years in prison for attempted murder after stabbing his stepson, according to US officials.
Three top US officials in Afghanistan and a senior administration official in Washington confirmed his German conviction, though none would speak on the record. They did not say whether the Afghan or US governments had known of his criminal conviction before Afghan officials appointed him to his post.
US officials in Afghanistan said Zahir’s criminal conviction did not undermine their confidence in his ability to govern.
“He served his time, so I suspect he will survive this,’’ a US military official said, adding, though, that the US government had expressed concern to the Afghan government about this issue.
Wow, what UNUSUAL EMPATHY for a CRIMINAL, huh?
His criminal record casts a different light on Zahir than the one American officials have chosen to emphasize: that of a respected elder from the Alozai tribe, a landowner who lived in Marja in his youth, and who hopes to re-create those peaceful days in areas recently wrested from Taliban control. US Marines and civilian advisers in Marja have given him money and protection in an attempt to persuade a wary population to follow him.
Yeah, they FLEW HIM IN on a CHOPPER and then FLEW HIM OUT again after about an hour.
“We want to ensure that Haji Zahir’s face is on everything we do,’’ said an official who works with him in Marja.
Actually, a criminal face on a war crime of an occupation somehow sounds right, doesn't it?
In interviews last week in Marja, Zahir spoke about the years he spent in exile living outside Frankfurt, sometimes unemployed, sometimes working in laundries and hotels. He chatted in German at length with a US Marine who spoke the language.
He could not be reached subsequently to discuss his time in prison....
Pffffft!
Yeah, newspapers are nothing but pr platforms for agenda-pushers.
The account of Zahar’s life and trial in Germany, as related in newspaper articles and confirmed by German officials last week, including his defense lawyer, Manfred Doering, described a man with a volatile family life and a willingness to flee from justice. He arrived in Germany in 1989 after working as a Ministry of Defense driver in Afghanistan.
He settled in Rodgau with at least two wives and 13 children, including twin 18-year-old stepsons.
He must like punishment.
On Dec. 15, 1997, after beating his wife and being taken to task by his stepson for it, Zahar went to the home of a stepdaughter and stabbed the stepson in the chest and an arm, wounds that required hospitalization.
And he has the temperament to run a province, huh?
Zahar fled to Holland and the Czech Republic and was later arrested at the German-Polish border near Goerlitz on Jan 7, 1998.
And a FUGITIVE, too, how nice!
At the trial, which began nine months later, Zahar took a plea bargain and was sentenced in November 1998 to four years and nine months in prison, according to German officials.
Zahir, the Marja official, was deported to Pakistan in 2003, according to US officials in Afghanistan.
German officials said they could not confirm that Abdul Zahar is the man who is now the top official in Marja.
Who can when the MSM and governments are giving you eighteen different names?
“I have no knowledge or way of confirming that this is the same man,’’ said Annette von Schmiedeberg, the spokeswoman for the Darmstadt prosecutors’ office in Offenbach, near Frankfurt.
As if it matters.
One U.S. toady the same as all the rest.
--more--"
