Hamid Karzai

KABUL, Afghanistan - Incumbent Hamid Karzai was on the verge of victory yesterday as final ballots were being counted in landmark presidential elections, but his main rival refused to concede defeat, maintaining allegations of fraud. With about 95 percent of ballots counted yesterday evening, Karzai had received 55 percent of more than 8 million votes cast. His closest opponent, former education minister Yunis Qanooni, had 16 percent. The near-complete results leave Karzai all but certain of becoming this war-torn nation's first democratically elected president.

With Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his top advisers visiting Washington this week, huge questions about the future of the NATO mission there consume Afghan and American minds. How fast can we draw down our current total of 68,000 U.S. troops (and another 30,000 or so from other outside countries) before the mission formally concludes at the end of next year? And how many forces do we have to keep in Afghanistan afterward? These questions come on top of other decisions we have been making lately, about the long-term size of the Afghan army and police and about foreign aid levels the international community will provide to Afghanistan for many years.

THE TRIBAL leader Hamid Karzai starts as provisional prime minister of Afghanistan tomorrow with the good will of most Afghans and best wishes of most of the world. That may not be enough. Warlordism and insurgency, possibly combined with an attempt by the Taliban to re-emerge, imperil the provisional government. Mr. Karzai, though, brings to the post considerable personal skill. The Pashtun prime minister, known for his loyalty to the former king, also will have a multiethnic Cabinet with the major power portfolio in the hands of ethnic Tajiks from the Northern Alliance.

Baltimore restaurateur Qayum Karzai has taken issue with a New York Times report that he is "mulling" a run for the Afghan presidency, now occupied by his brother, Hamid Karzai , who is due to step down in 2014. The news was included in Jim Risen's Sunday front-page story on the Karzai family. "What makes Jim Risen say that I'm mulling?" said Qayum Karzai, speaking from Albuquerque, N.M. "My decision depends on truly whether I can help, but running for president for the sake of being elected is nonsense in America or Afghanistan.

KARZAI TAKES OATH OF OFFICE Hamid Karzai was sworn in yesterday as Afghanistan's first popularly elected president. Read the story and find The Sun's archived Afghanistan coverage. www.baltimoresun.com/afghan BALCO STEROIDS SCANDAL Read the latest and get archived coverage of the steroids scandal rocking Major League Baseball and track and field. www.baltimoresun.com/steroids

Qayum Karzai got the latest telephone dispatch yesterday afternoon in Baltimore: His brother, Hamid Karzai, had fought off a Taliban attack in Afghanistan and taken up a position in Uruzgon, a province north of Kandahar. He was safe. Hamid Karzai, a deputy foreign minister in the pre-Taliban government, left his home in Pakistan a month ago to rally fellow Pashtun tribesman against the fundamentalist regime, said Qayum Karzai, who owns the Helmand Restaurant in Baltimore. "He was attacked Thursday by a group of Taliban, Pakistani extremists and al-Qaida," Qayum Karzai said.

Baltimore restaurateur Qayum Karzai has taken issue with a New York Times report that he is "mulling" a run for the Afghan presidency, now occupied by his brother, Hamid Karzai , who is due to step down in 2014. The news was included in Jim Risen's Sunday front-page story on the Karzai family. "What makes Jim Risen say that I'm mulling?" said Qayum Karzai, speaking from Albuquerque, N.M. "My decision depends on truly whether I can help, but running for president for the sake of being elected is nonsense in America or Afghanistan.

When Qayum Karzai arrives in Rome tomorrow to meet his brother Hamid, the two will be together for the first time since August -- not all that long ago, according to the calendar. "But if you look at all the events since then," Qayum, a Baltimore restaurateur, said yesterday, "it's a lifetime ago." Karzai leaves Baltimore today for Rome and then Kabul, where he will advise his brother as he puts together the transitional government that will run Afghanistan. On Saturday, Hamid Karzai is to be installed as chairman of the interim government.

KABUL, Afghanistan - Baltimore restaurateur Qayum Karzai considers the safety of his brother, the interim Afghan leader, Hamid Karzai, and he pauses. For a long time. The brothers have already lost their father to political assassination - in 1999 in Quetta, Pakistan - when he was trying to warn the world that the Taliban were a danger that could spread beyond Afghanistan. Now Hamid Karzai is making enemies by trying to rid his country of warlords as part of his strategy for promoting peace.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - As warlords have carved out chunks of Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban, the lawlessness that gave rise to the strict Islamic movement in the mid-1990s has begun to spread, once again, across this country. The U.S.-led military campaign that began Oct. 7 has succeeded in eradicating most of the Taliban and al-Qaida from Afghanistan, but it has returned to power nearly all of the same warlords who had misruled the country in the days before the Taliban. The warlords have all pledged loyalty to the interim government in Kabul.

It is being speculated that the American soldier who shot so many children and Afghan civilians recently probably suffered from battle fatigue and post traumatic stress disorder ("The killings in Kandahar," March 13). The Taliban has responded to these killings, as expected, in an opportunistic fashion, getting political mileage out of the tragic episode for itself and stirring up hatred against the Americans and nationalistic fervor across Afghanistan. Interestingly, the Taliban hit the right chord when it commented that an American trial declaring the perpetrator of the killings as a mad man, who acted under the duress of a mental breakdown, would only show the world that the U.S. is sending lunatics to Afghanistan.

Did you see the looks on the faces of the West Point cadets Tuesday night as President Barack Obama promised them a future of intensified war in Central Asia? They didn't seem thrilled, even as their commander-in-chief reminded them they volunteered for service. Applause was scarce and tepid. That was the only good thing about this occasion. As predicted, the strategy - a troop surge in Afghanistan - laid out in this long-anticipated speech was one of compromise, deception and self-delusion, delivered with all the man's oratorical flair, but as empty at its core as any political speech I have ever watched or listened to. We are supposed to believe him when he says we will exit Afghanistan by sending 30,000 more soldiers and Marines there, by becoming more involved in its affairs and those of neighboring Pakistan, and that we will be able to begin some disengagement within a year and a half.

The Punishment of Virtue: Inside Afghanistan After the Taliban By Sarah Chayes Penguin / 386 pages / $25.95 Afghanistan is sometimes referred to as the forgotten war. Once the linchpin of America's war on terror, which hinged on toppling the Taliban regime and hunting down Osama bin Laden, Afghanistan has been eclipsed by the bloodshed in Iraq. Five years after the Taliban collapsed, the country is struggling to cope with lawlessness, corruption, a roaring illicit drug trade and attacks by insurgents determined to drive out foreign troops.

KARZAI TAKES OATH OF OFFICE Hamid Karzai was sworn in yesterday as Afghanistan's first popularly elected president. Read the story and find The Sun's archived Afghanistan coverage. www.baltimoresun.com/afghan BALCO STEROIDS SCANDAL Read the latest and get archived coverage of the steroids scandal rocking Major League Baseball and track and field. www.baltimoresun.com/steroids

KABUL, Afghanistan - Hamid Karzai was sworn in yesterday as Afghanistan's first popularly elected president, three years after U.S.-backed resistance fighters swept the Taliban government from power. Karzai, who easily won election Oct. 9 to a five-year term after serving as head of a transitional government, took the oath of office in a nationally televised ceremony on the presidential grounds in front of an audience of hundreds of Afghan ministers, tribal elders, political and military leaders and 150 foreign dignitaries, including Vice President Dick Cheney.

KABUL, Afghanistan - Incumbent Hamid Karzai was on the verge of victory yesterday as final ballots were being counted in landmark presidential elections, but his main rival refused to concede defeat, maintaining allegations of fraud. With about 95 percent of ballots counted yesterday evening, Karzai had received 55 percent of more than 8 million votes cast. His closest opponent, former education minister Yunis Qanooni, had 16 percent. The near-complete results leave Karzai all but certain of becoming this war-torn nation's first democratically elected president.

KABUL, Afghanistan - Hamid Karzai, who was selected to lead the country for the next 18 months by the traditional grand council gathered here, tried yesterday to reach out to all of the nation's ethnic and regional groups as he asked the delegates to form a National Assembly to work with him. "We should create a council from the delegates here that should work with us over the next 18 months," he said. "They should hold a hand of anger over me so I do not go too far." It was another effort to involve the people in the decision-making process and placate many delegates who say that no one has been responding to their concerns.

The Punishment of Virtue: Inside Afghanistan After the Taliban By Sarah Chayes Penguin / 386 pages / $25.95 Afghanistan is sometimes referred to as the forgotten war. Once the linchpin of America's war on terror, which hinged on toppling the Taliban regime and hunting down Osama bin Laden, Afghanistan has been eclipsed by the bloodshed in Iraq. Five years after the Taliban collapsed, the country is struggling to cope with lawlessness, corruption, a roaring illicit drug trade and attacks by insurgents determined to drive out foreign troops.

NATIONAL Cheney, Edwards to debate The presidential campaign winds its way tonight into Cleveland, where two men whose personalities could not differ more -- Dick Cheney and John Edwards -- will spend 90 minutes debating. [Page 1a] Rocket soars to win prize A privately built rocket plane with a test pilot at the controls broke through the atmosphere to the edge of space yesterday for the second time in less than a week, capturing a $10 million prize. [Page 3a] Mercury astronaut Cooper dies Gordon Cooper, one of the original Mercury astronauts who were pioneers in space exploration, died at his home in Ventura, Calif.

KABUL, Afghanistan - Baltimore restaurateur Qayum Karzai considers the safety of his brother, the interim Afghan leader, Hamid Karzai, and he pauses. For a long time. The brothers have already lost their father to political assassination - in 1999 in Quetta, Pakistan - when he was trying to warn the world that the Taliban were a danger that could spread beyond Afghanistan. Now Hamid Karzai is making enemies by trying to rid his country of warlords as part of his strategy for promoting peace.