Amid Hagel visit, Karzai accuses U.S. of conspiring with Taliban

By David S. Cloud and Shashank Bengali
LA Times
10:17 AM PDT, March 10, 2013

KABUL, Afghanistan — The often-volatile U.S. relationship with Afghan President Hamid Karzai grew increasingly strained Sunday as Karzai accused the U.S. and Taliban insurgents of having a secret understanding to foment violence as a pretext to keep foreign troops in Afghanistan.

The comments were the latest — and perhaps the most baffling — broadside by the mercurial  Afghan leader against one of his nation’s closest allies, leaving U.S. officials privately fuming and publicly struggling to limit the fallout.

The comments came hours before Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, in Kabul on his first visit since taking office, was scheduled to hold a joint news conference with Karzai at the presidential palace. The news conference was canceled, a move that U.S. officials said was due not to Karzai’s inflammatory speech but to security concerns.

In a speech in Kabul to commemorate International Women’s Day, Karzai said that the deadly bombings carried out a day earlier by the Taliban in Kabul and the eastern Khost province, killing 18, “were not to show [the insurgents’] power but to serve the United States.” Speaking in the Dari language, he added that the bombings were intended “to pave the way for foreigners not to leave, but to stay.”

(More here.)