Telegraph.co.uk: Karzai is US stooge says Afghan deputy president - by Ben Farmer and Dean Nelson

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Karzai is US stooge says Afghan deputy president - by Ben Farmer and Dean Nelson

In a clash which showed how fragile the Western-backed government has become, President Hamid Karzai was labelled a corrupt incompetent by his own understudy, Ahmad Zia Massoud. He responded in kind, saying Mr Massoud was part of an American conspiracy to oust him.The ferocity of the infighting reflects a collapse in support for the Afghan president - both within the Afghan coalitions who have supported him since his election in 2004, and among his backers in Britain, the United States, the European Union and NATO. During a visit to Kabul last week, Foreign Secretary David Miliband said that British financial and military support for the Afghanistan would only continue if Mr Karzai's government raised its game. Tensions erupted after Mr Massoud made a speech blaming greed and corruption in the Karzai administration for the hunger and poverty in the country. He also said that Mr Karzai's plan to delay the May election until August 20 and extend his term until then was unconstitutional.

The row lasted for ten minutes and had to be broken up by cabinet colleagues, who eventually moved the men onto the meeting's business agenda.

Dallas News/NYT: The Party is over for Karzai: - Afghan leader considered unreliable by Obama administration - by Dexter Filkins

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The Party is over for Karzai: - Afghan leader considered unreliable by Obama administration - by Dexter Filkins

Karzai, a Bush White House favorite, now finds himself not so favored at all. President Barack Obama has said he regards Karzai as unreliable and ineffective. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said he presided over a "narco-state." The Americans making Afghan policy, worried that the war is being lost, are vowing to bypass Karzai and deal directly with the governors in the countryside. At home, Karzai faces a widening insurgency and a population that blames him for the lack of economic progress and the corrupt officials that seem to stand at every doorway of his government. His face, which once adorned the walls of tea shops across the country, is today much less visible.

Karzai is seeking re-election Aug. 20 to another five-year term. In a poll commissioned by private Afghans, 85 percent of those surveyed said they intended to vote for someone other than Karzai.