1. Head of Administration NSC Afghan National Security Council:
Mohammad Zia Salehi

2. Previous Functions of Salehi:
Intelligence officer in the Afghan communist regime's secret service,
Charge d'affaires in the Afghan Embassy in Prague (1999 to 2001),
Speaker for General Abdul Rashid Dostum (2001) also  working as an interpreter For Dostum
Freelance contributor for RFE/RL's Afghan Service. (2002 to 2003)
NSC Afghan National Security Council  Head of Administration (2004 -      )

3. Biodata:
Salehi is a Pashtun hailing from Wardak Province.Mr. Salehi is a political survivor, who, like many Afghans, navigated shifting alliances through 31 years of war. He is a former interpreter for Abdul Rashid Dostum, the ethnic Uzbek with perhaps the most ruthless reputation among all Afghan warlords.

Salehi is a confidant of some of the most powerful people in the Afghan government, including Engineer Ibrahim, who was the deputy chief of the Afghan intelligence service and the deputy chief of the National Security Council (NSC). Earlier in 2010, Salehi accompanied Ibrahim to Dubai to meet leaders of the Taliban to explore prospects for peace, according to a prominent Afghan with knowledge of the meeting.

Salehi has played a key role in support of Karzai's efforts to win reconciliation with Taliban insurgents and end the war in Afghanistan. The current and former Afghan officials said he had spoken regularly by cellphone with Taliban representatives and had arranged meetings between the Karzai administration and members of the Taliban and Hezb-i-Islami. It was unclear why the content of the conversations with insurgents concerned investigators.

The Afghan officials said that the investigation had determined that Salehi had also been involved with making cash payments from a palace fund to pay off Karzai's political supporters, and distributed gifts such as armored Land Cruisers and luxury Lexuses. "He was one of the most trusted staff members in the palace to do special things," said one Afghan official with direct knowledge of the case.

New York times wrote Aug. 26, 2010, it came to light that Mr. Salehi appears to have been on the Central Intelligence Agency's payroll for many years. It is unclear exactly what Mr. Salehi does in exchange for his money, whether providing information to the spy agency, advancing American views inside the presidential palace, or both.


Backgrund to the Salehi arrested affair:
Mohammad Zia Salehi, the head of administration for the Afghan National Security Council, was arrested 20100801 and accused of accepting a car from the deputy director of New Ansari Exchange in exchange for his help in seeking the release of a detained Afghan “hawala” dealer suspected of moving cash for drug traffickers in another corruption case, said Fazel Ahmad Faqiryar, first deputy attorney general. According to several Western officials, U.S.-backed investigators taped a conversation in which Mr. Saleh was negotiating a bribe—in the form of a car—in return for squashing an inquiry into the New Ansari Exchange, a large and influential money-transfer outfit. New Ansari has deep connections with prominent members of the Afghan government and the Karzai family, and, according to investigators, it is also suspected of links to Taliban insurgents and narcotics smugglers. The car, valued at about $10,000, was allegedly a small part of a larger proposed payoff, the officials said. New Ansari's manager, Haji Muhammad Khan, has denied any wrongdoing by the company. The case against Salehi was viewed as especially sensitive among U.S. officials because it reached directly into Karzai’s palace. Faqiriar said the attorney general's office has wiretaps of Salehi discussing the vehicle. "He tried to use his influence in different departments to free that guy any way possible," Faqiryar said. Salehi was arrested on bribery charges —then released the same day “at the direction of the palace,” a senior U.S. official told NBC News. The handling of the case of Mohamed Zia Salehi, the chief administrator of Karzai’s national security council, has infuriated U.S. officials and raised new questions about Karzai’s commitment to cracking down on corruption within his government. Rahmatullah Nazari, a deputy attorney general, said wiretapped conversations had also produced evidence that Salehi had accepted gifts, including a car provided to his son, in return for playing a role in opposing a corruption investigation aimed at New Ansari, the nation's largest money-transfer business, which was raided by investigators in January. "The talk on the intercepts was pretty clear that this car was intended to get Salehi to interfere with the investigation," said a senior U.S. official who worked with Afghan anti-corruption teams. The American official said the evidence had been presented to Afghanistan's attorney general, Mohammad Ishaq Aloko, who signed an arrest warrant for Salehi and instructed the Major Crimes Task Force, an Afghan police unit mentored by the FBI, to execute the arrest. Other senior government officials, such as Interior Minister Bismillah Khan and National Security Adviser Rangin Dadfar Spanta, knew in advance that Salehi was to be arrested, the Afghan officials said. On July 25, at about 5 a.m., a convoy of police trucks arrived outside Salehi's five-story Soviet-built apartment building in the Microyan neighborhood of Kabul. The officers wore masks and were heavily armed, said the building representative, and their early morning arrival set off a panic. Before long, the intelligence agency's rapid-reaction team arrived at the scene and confronted the police. After being shown the warrant, the intelligence officials relented, and within about an hour, Salehi turned himself over and was taken to a counternarcotics detention center in Kabul. By 6 p.m. the same day, however, police with the Major Crimes Task Force received a second letter from Aloko, the attorney general, ordering Salehi's release. An Afghan official with direct knowledge of the case said that Aloko had come under "enormous pressure" from Karzai to set Salehi free. A second Afghan official with direct knowledge of the events said that Aloko "received an order from the president" that Salehi be released. Aloko could not be reached for comment. Another deputy attorney general, Fazel Faqiryar, said that the office came under no pressure from Karzai's office, and that Salehi was released on bail and has been cooperating with the investigation. According to the Afghan officials, corruption investigators now say they fear for the safety of their families and do not believe it is possible to convict those close to the president. They do not expect Salehi to be indicted. Some believe the two elite task forces will be disbanded. Stankezi, the legal adviser, said that evidence collected by wiretapping was not admissible in court.
On Jan. 14, 2010 a U.S.-trained special task force raided the headquarters of money transfer company New Ansari Exchange and discovered that New Ansari was helping to launder profits from the illicit opium trade and moved Taliban money that had been earned through extortion and drug trafficking. The crime unit also found links between the money transfers and some of the most powerful political and business figures in the country, including relatives of Mr. Karzai. So much money had been passing through New Ansari in so many different currencies that it effectively set Afghanistan's exchange rates say officials from Afghanistan's central bank. Afghan customs documents reviewed by the Wall Street Journal indicate that $3.18 billion in cash was flown out of the country between January 2007 and February 2010, with 90% of that transported by New Ansari couriers. And this only includes “declared” amounts - the “undeclared” total is anybody’s guess.