Photo Credit: AP

In a statement Thursday, Karzai says that a review of the prisoners’ cases by Afghan intelligence and judicial officials turned up no evidence of wrongdoing for 45 of the detainees. Karzai says there was insufficient evidence on another 27 and that they must be released.

The U.S. is strongly opposed to their release because it says the prisoners have been involved in the wounding or killing of U.S. and coalition troops, Reuters reported.

The issue has been a sticking point in Afghan-U.S. relations as the two sides struggle to agree on a framework for the withdrawal of American and allied forces by the end of next year and the aftermath. Last week, a group of U.S. senators met Karzai in Kabul to warn him that release of the 88 detainees from the Parwan Detention Facility “would be a major step backward” for U.S.-Afghan relations.

A review of the prisoners’ cases by Afghan intelligence and judicial officials turned up no evidence of wrongdoing for 45 of the detainees, and there was insufficient evidence on another 27, so they must be released, Karzai said in a statement. He gave no details on when the release will take place.

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Photo Credit: AP/Abdul KhaleqAfter 12 years of occupation by U.S. military forces, Afghanistan set a record for growing opium poppies in 2013, according to newly released data from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

“Opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan reached a sobering record high in 2013,” said the UNODC. “According to the 2013 Afghanistan Opium Survey, cultivation amounted to some 209,000 hectares, outstripping the earlier record in 2007 of 193,000 hectares, and representing a 36 per cent increase over 2012.”

In fact, according to the latest worldwide data on opium-poppy cultivation, Afghanistan dedicates more land to the cultivation of opium poppies than all of the rest of the world combined.

According to the UNODC’s “World Drug Report,” published in May–which included data for the world’s primary opium producing regions through 2011–the 131,000 hectares that was devoted to opium cultivation in Afghanistan that year was more than the combined 76,500 hectares used to cultivate opium poppies in other places. This included the 43,600 hectares in Myanmar, the 12,000 hectares in Mexico, the 4,100 hectares in Lao People’s Democratic Republic, the 362 hectares in Pakistan, the 338 hectares in Columbia, and the combined 16,100 hectares under in various other countries.

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Photo Credit: Omar Sobhani/Reuters
For the second time in less than a week, President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan has picked a high-profile fight with his American allies, in the midst of a grand council that he convened to support a long-term security agreement with the United States.

American officials reacted with anger and exasperation on Saturday after Mr. Karzai publicly accused American Special Forces troops of killing civilians in a raid on an Afghan home; American officials said it was an Afghan-led raid that killed only insurgents.

Moreover, Mr. Karzai’s aides continued to insist that even if the council, or loya jirga, ratified the bilateral security agreement with the United States, Mr. Karzai would not sign it until next year, after a presidential election to choose his successor, but before he leaves office.

The remarks from the president’s camp left many people wondering why Mr. Karzai had convened a loya jirga, bringing to Kabul 2,500 Afghan notables from around the country, dismissing most employees from work for six days and locking down a city of five million so thoroughly that all roads to it were blocked for several days.

Even Mr. Karzai’s allies were at a loss to explain what he hoped to gain from the perplexing series of events around what was expected to be a straightforward deal. Mr. Karzai had earlier asked the Americans to delay signing the security agreement until a new president was elected, possibly allowing him to pass responsibility for the deal to his successor.

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