Afghan President Hamid Karzai Suspected of Taking Illegal Drugs

Afghan president Hamid Karzai's "mental stability" is in doubt and he may even be taking illegal drugs, America's former top diplomat at the United Nations mission to Afghanistan has claimed. In an interview with a US cable television network Peter Galbraith, the former UN deputy head of mission in Afghanistan described Mr Karzai as "emotional" and "off balance," and called for President Obama vastly to limit his power to appoint officials until he proved himself a reliable partner to the U.S.

"He's prone to tirades.

He can be very emotional, act impulsively," Mr Galbraith told MSNBC, adding: "In fact, some of the palace insiders say that he has a certain fondness for some of Afghanistan's most profitable exports.", Times Online informs.

Ten days ago, President Barack Obama was in Afghanistan, meeting with President Hamid Karzai on the pace of cleaning up corruption and visiting U.S. troops.

The past week has unfurled a series of precisely the sort of headlines that could possibly undermine public support for the war in Afghanistan, from newly confirmed stories of U.S. Special Forces soldiers implicated in the killings of three Afghan women to Afghan police being killed in friendly NATO fire to Karzai’s threat to run off and join the Taliban, Torontosun says.