Karzai Ousts Top Afghan Officials

In a dramatic shakeup at the top levels of Afghanistan's government, President Hamid Karzai demanded the resignation of two of his three top security officials. Karzai reprimanded the state's interior minister, Hanif Atmar, and its intelligence chief, Amrullah Saleh, for over two hours for their failure to thwart attacks at a high-level peace council meeting, known as a jirga, last week. The move surprised NATO officials and members of the diplomatic community: “We had a very good working relationship with both, a relationship developed over a long time,” said one NATO official. An anonymous official told The New York Times that the move is "really not helpful to what we’re trying to do right now" in Afghanistan; America's man in charge in the region, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, however, said in a statement that he respected "the president’s authority to make this difficult political decision.”