MI6 'handing bundles of cash to Hamid Karzai'

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/10038988/MI6-handing-bundles-of-cash-to-Hamid-Karzai.html



Britain has channelled cash into "special projects" undertaken by Karzai's officials.

MI6 'handing bundles of cash to Hamid Karzai'
By Damien McElroy, Foreign Affairs Correspondent
5:39PM BST 05 May 2013

MI6 officials have acknowledged that the organisation has made direct cash payments to their Afghan counterparts periodically over the 12 years Britain has been at war in Afghanistan.

Mr Karzai declared handouts from the CIA and MI6 are an "easy source of petty cash" for his government as it attempts to seal alliances with powerful regional warlords and secure defections from the Taliban.

The CIA support is believed to have amounted to tens of millions of dollars since 2001 while Britain has channelled a smaller fraction of that amount into "special projects" undertaken by Karzai's officials.

MPs expressed concern that by simply handing over so-called "ghost money" to President Karzai and his lieutenants, British spies could not be sure that the money would not be lost to corruption.