Among all these advisers, there is one man who has been indispensable to Karzai over the last 12 years—and the extent of his influence is largely unknown except to a small circle in the government who dub him “the shadow Karzai.” After the president, Ibrahim Spinzada, or “Engineer Ibrahim” as he is known, is one of the most influential men in Afghanistan. “Engineer Ibrahim’s word carries more weight in the government than anyone else’s—sometimes maybe even more than the president’s,” one former longtime aide to Karzai explained to me. Spinzada’s friendship with Karzai goes back decades, the aide said, and Spinzada was at Karzai’s side in the days following 9/11. “There is nobody closer to the president—not even his own brothers, his own family.”
Posted on: Tue, 24 Jun 2014 12:21:49 +0000
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