Afghan Officials Steal Foreign Aid

"There is increasing corruption from top government officials down, which is making efforts to get reconstruction off the ground much more difficult," UK Shadow Defense Secretary Liam Fox told the paper.

Fox, an MP for Woodspring, said he heard first-had of the cancerous corruption when he visited the country last summer.

Sergeant Major Denis Tondreau, in charge of delivering Canadian army aid to the Pashmul area, said Afghan police unit in one village was notorious for corruption.

"I have been told that if I bring aid to Pasab the police will steal it," he said.

"They are just a bad, bad unit… extortion, corruption and use of drugs."

A Pentagon official told the British paper that thousands of cars and trucks intended for use by the Afghan police had been sold instead.

The aid, in best-case scenarios, is shifted to areas other than the ones it was allocated to.

For instance, some of the £ 2million allocated to projects intended to help internal refugees had been also diverted to build vehicle checkpoints.

The Human Rights Watch (HRW) has recently warned that US-led troops and the West-backed government of Hamid Karzai have been collaborating with blood-stained hands, appointing war criminals and human rights abusers to achieve their unwinnable mission.

Days after the9 / 11attacks, the US invaded Afghanistan to topple the Taliban regime and its ally al-Qaeda group.

Tribal Pockets

Tribal elders have also been accused of seizing goods, building materials and fuel and selling them in markets.

"When the soldiers came here they gave things to the rich people. The elders took things for themselves and we received nothing," fumed Abdul Ghany,20 .

Noor Ullah, a police intelligence officer in Zharey district, said tribal leaders had to be persuaded that the aid was not intended for them alone.

"The equipment is not to rebuild your own homes, it is for the mosques and the whole village," he told them at a meeting.

"It is not for individuals, it is for the community. It is not for you to take and sell it."

A committee of British MPs is to investigate the corruption.

"Corruption is something we will be examining," said James Arbuthnot, Chairman of the Commons Defense select committee.

"The matter needed to be urgently addressed."

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