{"id":372,"date":"2012-12-23T15:22:38","date_gmt":"2012-12-23T15:22:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/projects.appropriate.is\/matthewgreenjournalism.com\/?p=372"},"modified":"2018-08-24T18:29:26","modified_gmt":"2018-08-24T18:29:26","slug":"stalking-the-talibans-banker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/matthewgreenjournalism.com\/index.php\/2012\/12\/23\/stalking-the-talibans-banker\/","title":{"rendered":"Stalking the Taliban\u2019s banker"},"content":{"rendered":"<h4 style=\"text-align: center;\">Washington is trying to starve the insurgency of funds before handing over to Afghan forces in 2014<\/h4>\n<p>Haji Khairullah Barakzai is the ultimate Afghan success story: illiterate village boy makes a fortune thanks to a lifetime of hard work, unerring street smarts and God\u2019s favour. But to the U.S. Treasury Department, he is one of the biggest bankers to the Taliban, the architect of an underground network that converts opium grown in the poppy fields of his native southern Afghanistan into cash.<\/p>\n<div class=\"sc-columns third-and-two-thirds clearfix\">\n<div class=\"col\">\nOn June 29, the United States and United Nations slapped \u201cterror finance\u201d sanctions on Khairullah and his 25-yearold currency-exchange business, freezing his assets and imposing a travel ban. The move marked a new phase in an escalating but little known campaign to starve the insurgency of drug money ahead of a handover to Afghan forces in 2014.<\/p>\n<p>A Treasury statement accused Khairullah of \u201cdonating money and providing financial services to the Taliban\u201d, which used his cash transfer service \u201cin support of the Taliban\u2019s narcotics and terrorist operations\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Treasury\u2019s evidence is classified, but Afghan sources and Western officials familiar with Khairullah painted a portrait of a man with long-standing ties to the Taliban and the drug trade alongside significant legitimate businesses.<\/p>\n<p>Khairullah\u2019s friends and associates describe an entirely different figure, a patriarchal pillar of the community who in the murky world of Afghan currency trading cannot always be expected to know the true identity of his customers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"col\">\n<div style=\"width: 693px; height: 448px; overflow: hidden;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"margin-left: -27px; margin-top: -14px;\" src=\"\/\/e.issuu.com\/embed.html#9843580\/6343331\" height=\"479\" width=\"740\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><div class=\"sc-columns third clearfix\">\n<div class=\"col\">\n\u201cI am a businessman, and a businessman is like a ram. Anyone in authority can come and grab it by its neck and slaughter it,\u201d Khairullah told Reuters, in his first interview since the sanctions were imposed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy life has become hell. I have lost my credibility and reputation. I have been declared guilty without any verdict from a judge,\u201d he said. He was speaking by telephone from Quetta, the city in southwest Pakistan where he sought sanctuary after Washington named him as a key Taliban financier.<\/p>\n<p>The showdown between Khairullah and his pursuers opens a rare window into another kind of war, where financial intelligence trumps firepower, and captured territory is measured in frozen accounts.<\/p>\n<div class=\"sc-separator type-space\"><\/div>\n<blockquote><p>My life has become hell. I have lost my credibility and reputation. I have been declared guilty without any verdict from a judge<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: right; font-style: italic;\"><strong>Haji Khairullah Barakzai<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"col\">\nIt is a war the West has not been winning. Milking money from the heroin trade, donors in the Gulf and extortion rackets on NATO contractors, the Taliban increased its income to $400 million in the last Afghan calendar year, according to U.N. estimates. About a quarter came from narcotics.<\/p>\n<p>Since sanctioning Khairullah and his business partner Haji Abdul Sattar Barakzai, the U.S. government has stepped up its campaign to disrupt the insurgents\u2019 revenue streams. Washington has hit militant groups, guerrilla commanders and other currency dealers with a slew of similar measures.<\/p>\n<p>U.S. officials acknowledge it is hard to rank the significance of any one of a core group of suspected Taliban money men with precision, but they believe Khairullah is integral to the movement\u2019s funding structure.<\/p>\n<p>Proponents say squeezing the cash pipelines that pay for fighters and weapons is a smart way to pressure the Taliban while the vast majority of foreign combat troops is being withdrawn.<\/p>\n<p>The approach could also be used to exert leverage over Taliban hardliners, if halting attempts to foster peace talks gain momentum. Tentative contacts between the United States and the Taliban suffered a setback in March when the two sides could not agree on a proposed prisoner swap. But the White House remains keen to pursue dialogue. The hunt for Khairullah\u2019s presumed millions points to the sheer difficulty of choking Taliban funding channels.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"col\">\nInvestigators who venture into the region\u2019s forbidding ecosystem of illicit commerce find that lines between legitimate trade and criminality often blur, handwritten ledgers are barely decipherable, and deceptively nondescript offices move mountains of cash.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEverything is done on a phone call and a handshake,\u201d said one U.S. official. \u201cThe record system or the paper trail that allow you to connect the dots is not as clear as the Western system.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In Kandahar\u2019s seven-storey money market, where turbaned dealers haggle over bricks of well-worn notes, Khairullah\u2019s colleagues leapt to the defence of a respected member of their age-old fraternity.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen we went to his office, we only saw people changing money or drinking tea or eating sweets,\u201d said Haji Qandi Agha, a regallooking trader who is the market\u2019s president. \u201cThere was no talk of the Taliban or heroin.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Agha gestured to a man with a closecropped beard and embroidered skull cap who had just approached his counter.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor example, this man is sending money,\u201d he said, after the customer produced a sheaf of grubby bills from his waistcoat. \u201cWhat if the government or America captures him and says he\u2019s Taliban? Is it my crime?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The man, counting with deft thumbs, did not look up.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-387\" alt=\"afganistan2\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/matthewgreenjournalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/afganistan2.jpg?resize=1050%2C499\" width=\"1050\" height=\"499\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/matthewgreenjournalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/afganistan2.jpg?w=1254&amp;ssl=1 1254w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/matthewgreenjournalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/afganistan2.jpg?resize=300%2C142&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/matthewgreenjournalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/afganistan2.jpg?resize=1024%2C486&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/matthewgreenjournalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/afganistan2.jpg?resize=600%2C285&amp;ssl=1 600w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/matthewgreenjournalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/afganistan2.jpg?resize=1220%2C580&amp;ssl=1 1220w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1050px) 100vw, 1050px\" \/><\/p>\n<div class=\"sc-columns third clearfix\">\n<div class=\"col\">\n<h6 style=\"text-align: center;\">SELLER TO CURRENCY KING<\/h6>\n<p>Khairullah was born into a modest family in Afghanistan\u2019s southern Helmand province, where he revealed his entrepreneurial streak as a boy by selling sweets from a handcart, according to two politicians who knew him.<\/p>\n<p>Khairullah, now about 50, said he built his empire from humble beginnings, starting out by trading goods within Afghanistan and the region. Later, he invested in properties whose value soared exponentially after the Taliban was overthrown in 2001. He diversified into scrap metal and rice exporting in Pakistan and owns a freight company in Dubai.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"col\">\nIn Kandahar, the birthplace of the Taliban, Khairullah\u2019s reputation as a shrewd currency trader is leavened by his image as a philanthropist. Colleagues praised him for mobilising relief for Pakistani earthquake survivors or Afghan villagers tormented by frostbite during harsh winters.<\/p>\n<p>Above all, Khairullah is a king of the hawala trade. U.S. officials believe his network of more than a dozen currency counters spans Afghanistan, Pakistan, Dubai and Iran.<\/p>\n<p>The hawala trust-based money transfer system, which pre-dates the time of the Prophet Mohammed, is the banking system of choice in Afghanistan\u2019s cash-based economy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"col\">\nCustomers tend to be far happier entrusting their money to established hawala agents like Khairullah than a new crop of Western-style banks. A $900 million fraud at Kabul Bank, emblematic of the lack of ethics or controls in much of the formal sector, sharpened suspicions of the new Afghan financial elite.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is true that 35 to 40 years ago I had nothing,\u201d Khairullah said. \u201cMaybe I couldn\u2019t even have raised 100,000 rupees ($1,000) back then. But God bestowed me with two eyes to see and a mind to think.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Current and former officials ascribe Khairullah\u2019s wealth to a different source: Afghanistan\u2019s burgeoning heroin trade.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"sc-columns two-thirds-and-third clearfix\">\n<div class=\"col\">\n<div id=\"attachment_388\" style=\"width: 749px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-388\" class=\"size-full wp-image-388\" alt=\"POPPY PIPELINE: Some of the estimated $400 million that the Taliban raised last year comes from a cut of the opium harvests in Afghanistan. REUTERS\/Parwiz\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/matthewgreenjournalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/afganistan4.jpg?resize=739%2C474\" width=\"739\" height=\"474\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/matthewgreenjournalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/afganistan4.jpg?w=739&amp;ssl=1 739w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/matthewgreenjournalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/afganistan4.jpg?resize=300%2C192&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/matthewgreenjournalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/afganistan4.jpg?resize=600%2C384&amp;ssl=1 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 739px) 100vw, 739px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-388\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">POPPY PIPELINE: Some of the estimated $400 million that the Taliban raised last year comes from a cut of the opium harvests in Afghanistan. REUTERS\/Parwiz<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"col\">\n\u201cHe is one of the biggest fish in the region,\u201d said General Khodaidad (who goes by one name), Afghanistan\u2019s counter-narcotics minister from 2007 to 2010.<\/p>\n<p>A source in Pakistan\u2019s Anti-Narcotics Force also said Khairullah was suspected of involvement in trafficking. \u201cHe is rich and resourceful, therefore no one can touch him,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>In 2012, the farm-gate value of opium &#8211; the actual cut farmers receive from the trade &#8211; accounted for 4 percent of Afghan gross domestic product, or about $700 million, according to U.N. data. Afghanistan provides 90 percent of the global supply of heroin and other illegal opiates, which has an estimated annual street value of $68 billion.<\/p>\n<p>The accusations against Khairullah date back to the austere era of Taliban rule in the late 1990s. Then, he mingled with a coterie of heroin exporters who thrived under the patronage of Mullah Mohammed Omar, the movement\u2019s enigmatic leader, according to two people from Kandahar familiar with the trade.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe became close to the Taliban,\u201d said one of the sources. \u201cHe bought drugs and sold them and made lots of money.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"sc-columns third clearfix\">\n<div class=\"col\">\nThe source added he had seen Khairullah visit Mullah Omar\u2019s compound in Kandahar city perhaps 20 times before the Taliban was toppled, forcing many of its commanders to flee to Quetta, where Khairullah maintains an office.<\/p>\n<p>In the summer of 2000, the year before his ouster, Mullah Omar banned poppy, causing opium prices to skyrocket. That made fortunes for Khairullah and others who had amassed stockpiles, according to a member of Kandahar\u2019s provincial council.<\/p>\n<p>Khairullah, who denies ever meeting Mullah Omar, said reports he was connected with the drug trade were concocted by his business rivals.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI will be here five years from now, 10 years from now or 15 years from now,\u201d he said. \u201cIf they can prove their allegations against me with concrete evidence, then they can and should hang me for it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>For much of the West\u2019s 11-year campaign, the art of tracking sources of insurgent funding was a neglected discipline at the Kabul headquarters of ISAF, the NATO-led force in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n<p>The U.S. military, stretched in Iraq, resisted calls to pursue Afghan drug lords, fearing that \u201cmission creep\u201d into counter-narcotics would be a further drain on resources.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"col\">\nThe role smuggling plays in sustaining the insurgency began to receive more attention in 2009 as part of a wider shakeup of the war effort under U.S. President Barack Obama, who tripled the number of American troops in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n<p>Investigators suspect Khairullah stands at the centre of an \u201ciron triangle\u201d locking hawala dealers, heroin kingpins and militants into an increasingly profitable symbiosis.<\/p>\n<p>Taliban commanders would collect opium from poppy growers, then hand it over at his shops in farming communities in return for instant payments, a Western official said.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>If they can prove their allegations against me with concrete evidence, then they can and should hang me for it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: right; font-style: italic;\"><strong>Haji Khairullah Barakzai<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe would take opium and give you cash,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Khairullah would then gather bulk quantities of opium in hidden storehouses to sell to traffickers for a lucrative margin, the official alleged.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"col\">\n<div id=\"attachment_391\" style=\"width: 549px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-391\" class=\"size-full wp-image-391\" alt=\"Source:The United Nations\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/matthewgreenjournalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/afganistan3.jpg?resize=539%2C314\" width=\"539\" height=\"314\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/matthewgreenjournalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/afganistan3.jpg?w=539&amp;ssl=1 539w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/matthewgreenjournalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/afganistan3.jpg?resize=300%2C174&amp;ssl=1 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 539px) 100vw, 539px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-391\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Source:The United Nations<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"sc-separator type-space\"><\/div>U.S. officials say his hawala shops also served insurgents like a conventional bank, allowing Taliban leaders to make monthly payments to fighters, including their top commander in Helmand, a suspected major player in the heroin trade.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs of 2010, Khairullah was a hawaladar, or hawala operator, for Taliban senior leadership and provided financial assistance to the Taliban,\u201d the Treasury statement said.<\/p>\n<p>Khairullah denies the allegations. \u201cI am an illiterate man,\u201d he said. \u201cI have never been part of a political organisation either in Afghanistan or in Pakistan. My sole concern has been my business.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"sc-columns two-thirds-and-third clearfix\">\n<div class=\"col\">\n<div id=\"attachment_392\" style=\"width: 777px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-392\" class=\"size-full wp-image-392\" alt=\"TACKLING THE TALIBAN: the United States is turning over the battle against the Taliban insurgency to Afghan forces as it focuses on shutting down the source of its funding. REUTERS\/Goran Tomasevic\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/matthewgreenjournalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/afganistan5-e1386781376634.jpg?resize=767%2C583\" width=\"767\" height=\"583\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/matthewgreenjournalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/afganistan5-e1386781376634.jpg?w=767&amp;ssl=1 767w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/matthewgreenjournalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/afganistan5-e1386781376634.jpg?resize=300%2C228&amp;ssl=1 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 767px) 100vw, 767px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-392\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">TACKLING THE TALIBAN: the United States is turning over the battle against the Taliban insurgency to Afghan forces as it focuses on shutting down the source of its funding. REUTERS\/Goran Tomasevic<\/p><\/div>\n<div style=\"background: #FFFFFF; padding: 10px 10px 2px 10px;\">\n<div class=\"sc-box bg-brownlight content-black opacity-on\"><div class=\"inner\" style=\"padding-top:30px;padding-bottom:30px;\"><h2><a href=\"http:\/\/reut.rs\/Td8HTO\" target=\"_blank\">See the Video<\/a><\/h2><\/div><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"line-height: 1.5em;\"><\/div><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"col\">\n<div class=\"sc-separator type-thin\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"background: #FFFFFF; padding: 10px 10px 2px 10px;\">\n<h4 style=\"text-align: center;\">Drug money<\/h4>\n<p>High opium prices are likely to benefit the Taliban, who raise millions of dollars each year from trafficking opiates. This year\u2019s crop in Afghanistan is worth an estimated $700 million.<\/p>\n<h6 style=\"text-align: center;\">AFGHANISTAN OPIUM PRICES<\/h6>\n<p>Avg weighted farm-gate price at harvest<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_396\" style=\"width: 430px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-396\" class=\"size-full wp-image-396\" alt=\"NOTE: *2012 = Jan to Sept only. Source: U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/matthewgreenjournalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/afganistan71.jpg?resize=420%2C473\" width=\"420\" height=\"473\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/matthewgreenjournalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/afganistan71.jpg?w=420&amp;ssl=1 420w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/matthewgreenjournalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/afganistan71.jpg?resize=266%2C300&amp;ssl=1 266w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 420px) 100vw, 420px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-396\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">NOTE: *2012 = Jan to Sept only.<br \/>Source: U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"sc-separator type-thin\"><\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"sc-columns third clearfix\">\n<div class=\"col\">\nLike other hawaladars, he said he could not be expected to always know who his clients were. \u201cIt is not written on someone\u2019s forehead that he is a member of the Taliban,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Esmatullah Helmand, a Khairullah relative who runs his Kabul branch, said far from being in cahoots with the insurgents, his boss had feared being attacked for moving money on behalf of trucking companies supplying ISAF.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen we saw this thing on the news \u2013 that we were blacklisted \u2013 we were shocked,\u201d Esmatullah said.<\/p>\n<p>Any hope Khairullah may have had of keeping the sanctions quiet was shattered when Afghan television broadcast reports of his designation on the U.S. Treasury and U.N. websites.<\/p>\n<p>Like Western banks, hawala dealers run highly leveraged businesses with paper assets many times larger than the cash they hold. Shocks can tip them into bankruptcy.<\/p>\n<p>Khairullah had faced an earlier crunch in 2010 after several of his partners incurred huge losses. The sanctions triggered a new crisis as hundreds of his remaining customers scrambled to retrieve their funds.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPeople who would deposit their money with me for years are now standing outside my door,\u201d Khairullah said.<br \/>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"col\">\nWithin days of his designation by the U.S. Treasury, Khairullah had driven 200 kilometres (124 miles) from Kandahar to Quetta, an ISAF official said, dodging a U.N. travel ban that should have barred him from entering Pakistan.<\/p>\n<p>At the same time, he began working his phones. Haji Najeebullah Akhtary, president of Kabul\u2019s Sarai Shahzada currency market, was among the first to receive a call.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cImmediately, he called me and said he was going to meet President Karzai,\u201d Akhtary said.<\/p>\n<p>Approaching the president would have been a natural step. Karzai\u2019s family hails from Kandahar, and the president has tended to sympathise with community leaders nursing grievances against ISAF.<\/p>\n<p>Shah Wali Karzai, one of the president\u2019s brothers and a prominent Kandahari, said he had hosted Khairullah\u2019s partner Sattar at a meeting aimed at settling a land dispute in February, before the pair were sanctioned.<\/p>\n<p>Khairullah\u2019s hopes of winning a similar audience with the president came to nothing. Instead, Karzai ordered security chiefs to investigate him, a presidential spokesman said.<\/p>\n<p>Undeterred, Khairullah sent another relative to Kabul to lobby Afghanistan\u2019s National Directorate of Security, the intelligence agency, an NDS official said.<br \/>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"col\">\n<blockquote><p>He must have had some tip-off, some knowledge that it was coming.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: right; font-style: italic;\"><strong>Mohammad Mustafa Massoudi<\/strong><br \/>\nFinTRACA director-general<\/p>\n<p>The NDS offered to work with the family to investigate the U.S. claims and inform Washington if they were unfounded, but the relative declined, the official added.<\/p>\n<p>Mullah Sayed Mohammed Akhund, a lawmaker from Kandahar, also fielded frantic calls from his long-time friend.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI guarantee that he hasn\u2019t paid even one penny to the Taliban,\u201d Akhund said. \u201cHe has lost his way and he doesn\u2019t know what to do.\u201d<\/p>\n<h6 style=\"text-align: center;\">TIP-OFF<\/h6>\n<p>As Khairullah called his contacts, the Afghan financial intelligence unit, FinTRACA, moved to freeze his assets.<\/p>\n<p>Although hawala dealers can shift large sums purely by cooperating with fellow hawaladars, big players also rely on the formal banking system to help reconcile elaborate cross-border transactions that can involve millions of dollars.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"sc-columns two-thirds-and-third clearfix\">\n<div class=\"col\">\n<div id=\"attachment_398\" style=\"width: 743px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-398\" class=\"size-full wp-image-398\" alt=\"THE LONGEST WAR: The United States will withdraw the vast majority of its forces from Afghanistan by the end of 2014, winding down its longest war. REUTERS\/Danish Siddiqui\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/matthewgreenjournalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/afganistan9-e1386783250314.jpg?resize=733%2C575\" width=\"733\" height=\"575\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/matthewgreenjournalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/afganistan9-e1386783250314.jpg?w=733&amp;ssl=1 733w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/matthewgreenjournalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/afganistan9-e1386783250314.jpg?resize=300%2C235&amp;ssl=1 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 733px) 100vw, 733px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-398\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">THE LONGEST WAR: The United States will withdraw the vast majority of its forces from Afghanistan by the end of 2014, winding down its longest war. REUTERS\/Danish Siddiqui<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"col\">\nWhen the blocking orders arrived at Afghanistan\u2019s commercial banks, the lenders told FinTRACA that Khairullah\u2019s accounts only held the equivalent of $20,000 &#8211; a fraction of the sums he is believed to have been moving.<\/p>\n<p>FinTRACA did not provide the names of the banks.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA couple of months prior to the sanctions, he had stopped transferring money via these accounts,\u201d said Mohammad Mustafa Massoudi, FinTRACA directorgeneral. \u201cHe must have had some tip-off, some knowledge that it was coming.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Nevertheless, Khairullah said the sanctions had forced him to auction property to raise cash. A real estate agent in Kandahar said an agitated-looking Khairullah had visited him in August to try to cut a quick deal to sell 24 plots in a new development on the edge of the city for $360,000.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHis face told me he was very worried,\u201d the agent said.<\/p>\n<p>As Afghan officials pondered the whereabouts of Khairullah\u2019s elusive hoard, Luke Bronin, the U.S. deputy assistant secretary for terrorist financing, boarded a plane for the Pakistani commercial capital of Karachi in early September.<\/p>\n<p>U.S. officials say they consulted closely with Pakistan before sanctioning Khairullah, Sattar and HKHS, their hawala company, mindful of long-standing Pakistani resentment of pressure to crack down on the Taliban.<\/p>\n<div class=\"sc-separator type-thin\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"sc-columns third clearfix\">\n<div class=\"col\">\n<blockquote><p>The Americans and the United Nations have persecuted me<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: right; font-style: italic;\"><strong>Haji Khairullah Barakzaii<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Bronin hammered home the importance of putting the two men out of business in two days of meetings with financial and security officials in Karachi and Islamabad.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey have been designated not only by the U.S. but also by the United Nations,\u201d Bronin told Reuters. \u201cSo we have every expectation that Pakistan will take the necessary steps to shut them down.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Pakistan\u2019s central bank said it routinely implements U.N. freeze orders, but does not divulge details.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"col\">\nIn Quetta, Khairullah appears to operate unimpeded, working from an unmarked first-floor office guarded by a metal door opposite a motorbike repair shop. Western officials marvel at his continued ability to raise six-figure dollar sums in cash.<\/p>\n<p>Fuming at his adversaries from his Quetta headquarters, Khairullah seems anxious as well as angry. A fellow hawala merchant, Haji Mohammed Qasim, was arrested by Afghan and U.S. forces in Kandahar in mid-September.<\/p>\n<p>Haji Agha Jan, another currency trader, said his business had collapsed after ISAF detained him for 25 days last year to interrogate him over his client list. \u201cPeople are afraid that the Americans will arrest me again,\u201d he said, chewing green tobacco in his empty shop.<\/p>\n<p>Resentment of the U.S. sanctions in Kandahar\u2019s money bazaar is echoed by the wider business community In Kabul.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"col\">\nThe Afghanistan Chamber of Commerce and Industries, the country\u2019s leading business lobby, has been sharply critical of U.S. authorities for publicly naming suspected Taliban supporters without submitting evidence to Afghan courts.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey are destroying the image of individuals and businesses,\u201d said Mohammad Qurban Haqjo, the Chamber president. \u201cIn other countries, nobody is allowed to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>On a recent afternoon in the city\u2019s currency market, no customers called at shop 237, Khairullah\u2019s counter. A storefront sign emblazoned with his name had been effaced with blue paint. Only a Koranic inscription above the door had been left untouched. It read: \u201cAnd God is the Best of Providers.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Americans and the United Nations have persecuted me,\u201d Khairullah said. \u201cThey will have to compensate me for my losses.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Washington is trying to starve the insurgency of funds before handing over to Afghan forces in 2014 Haji Khairullah Barakzai is the ultimate Afghan&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":388,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[9,10,3,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-afganistan","category-reuters","category-south-asia","category-stories"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/matthewgreenjournalism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/afganistan4.jpg?fit=739%2C474&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4ilu4-60","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/matthewgreenjournalism.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/matthewgreenjournalism.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/matthewgreenjournalism.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matthewgreenjournalism.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matthewgreenjournalism.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=372"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/matthewgreenjournalism.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1607,"href":"https:\/\/matthewgreenjournalism.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372\/revisions\/1607"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matthewgreenjournalism.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/matthewgreenjournalism.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matthewgreenjournalism.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matthewgreenjournalism.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}