Karzai's brother linked to heroin trade

But the report said indirect evidence against Ahmed Wali Karzai continues to mount. When Afghan security forces found an enormous cache of heroin hidden in a tractor-trailer outside Kandahar in 2004, the local Afghan commander Habibullah Jan, received a telephone call from Ahmed Wali Karzai, asking him to release the vehicle and the drugs, The Times said.

Two years later, American and Afghan counter-narcotics forces stopped another truck near Kabul and discovered more than 50 kg of heroin in it.

After that seizure, the report said, US investigators discovered links between the shipment and a bodyguard believed to be an intermediary for Ahmed Wali Karzai.

Both President Karzai and Ahmed Wali Karzai, who is now head of the Kandahar Provincial Council, dismiss the allegations as politically motivated attacks by longtime enemies, the newspaper said.