US to bolster Afghan border, customs training

The U.S. will send more American experts to train Afghan police and customs officials to better manage the country's porous border crossings, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said on Saturday, noting that such training was critical to preparing for the eventual exit of foreign troops.

Napolitano will also meet with President Hamid Karzai and his ministers of finance and interior before leaving for Qatar later in the weekend. She did not say what she would discuss with them, but for the past year her department has been working with the Afghan government establish a border security and customs system and crack down on the smuggling of drugs and cash.

She said 52 former U.S. customs and border patrol officers would arrive in Afghanistan in 2011. The homeland security department currently has 25 agents on the ground, up from 11 a year ago.

To halt billions of dollars flow

Halting the flow of billions of dollars of cash from Afghanistan is a top U.S. priority there. Since 2007, an estimated $3 billion in cash has flowed out of Afghanistan through the country's two major airports, most of it to Dubai, according to Afghan police and intelligence officials.

While taking large amounts of money is not illegal under Afghan law, the scope of the transfers has alarmed U.S. and other international officials because it could be diverted aid funds, drug money or Taliban cash.

Napolitano said training border police and customs officials was an important part of NATO's overall aim to transition security to Afghan forces by the end of 2014 - when most foreign combat troops are expected to leave the country.

In southern Afghanistan, the U.S.-led coalition said one of its service members was killed by a bomb - the first to die in the new year. It did not provide details.

Last year was by far the deadliest for foreign troops in the decade-old war, with 702 killed, eclipsing the 2009 record of 504.

NATO also said it killed at least eight insurgents and captured a Taliban leader in several operations throughout Afghanistan. It was unclear whether the Taliban leader was killed or detained.

Karzai’s refusal

Meanwhile, Afghan President Hamid Karzai refused to remove a former warlord from atop the energy and water ministry despite U.S. pressure to oust the minister because they considered him corrupt and ineffective.

Secret diplomatic records showed the minister - privately termed "the worst" by U.S. officials - kept his perch at an agency that controls $2 billion in U.S. and allied projects.

The refusal to remove the official despite threats to end U.S. aid highlights how little influence the U.S. has over the Afghan leader on pressing issues such as corruption.

Reining in graft is seen as vital to Afghanistan's long-term stability.

Obama last month cited an urgent need for political and economic progress even as military successes have blunted the insurgency in some regions.

The State Department correspondence was written as Karzai was assembling a Cabinet shortly after his 2009 re-election.

But U.S. aid to Afghanistan has continued despite the dispute over the former warlord, Ismail Khan, in December 2009.

U.S. Ambassador Karl Eikenberry pressured Karzai to remove Khan, a once powerful mujahedeen commander, from the top of the energy and water ministry, according to two State Department reports written at the time by U.S. Embassy officials in Kabul. They were disclosed last month by WikiLeaks.

A Dec. 19, 2009, memorandum distributed internally under Eikenberry's name described Khan as "the worst of Karzai's choices" for Cabinet members. "This former warlord is known for his corruption and ineffectiveness at the energy ministry," the memo said.

Even with U.S. threats to withhold aid, Karzai rejected requests to replace Khan. "Our repeated interventions directly with Karzai ... did not overcome Karzai's deeply personal bonds with Khan," one of the reports said.

Asked earlier in 2010 about the corruption allegations, Khan, during a brief interview with The Associated Press, did not respond directly to a question asking whether he was profiting personally from the ministry. He denied any widespread problems of corruption or mismanagement.

"No money is missing from the ministry," he said. "All the income goes directly to the bank."

Khan said he was unaware of any complaints against him or the ministry. "If there have been complaints, nobody has come to me to tell me," he said.

The U.S. continued pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into new energy and water projects that the ministry used to help generate tens of millions in customer fees. Many of those fees are lost each year partly due to corruption, according to U.S.-funded reviews of the ministry's operations.