Kandahar, Afghanistan: The powerful half brother of President Hamid Karzai urged the international aid community Tuesday not to pull out of the troubled southern city of Kandahar, where the security situation is deteriorating.
The United Nations said Monday it was scaling back its operations in Kandahar, relocating several foreign employees to Kabul and telling more than 200 Afghan U.N. workers to stay home.
The announcement came hours after three bombings — one targeting a local police official — shook the city. A recent rash of attacks comes ahead of a joint Afghan-NATO operation to try to wrest control of the area from Taliban militants.
"We are not facing a big threat," said Ahmad Wali Karzai, a top official in Kandahar province and the most important power broker in southern Afghanistan. He added that the security situation was far worse a few years ago.
"You get one or two incidents once or twice a week," he told. "That shouldn`t be a concern. A suicide attack can happen anywhere."
Bureau Report
