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Yahoo! My Yahoo! Mail More Yahoo! Services Account Options New User? Sign Up Sign In Help Yahoo! Search web search Home Singapore Asia Pacific World Business Entertainment Sports Technology Weekend Edition Australia China India Indonesia Japan Malaysia Philippines Thailand Vietnam Bank scandal highlights Afghan corruption AFP - Sunday, February 20 Send IM Story Print Bank scandal highlights Afghan corruption KABUL (AFP) - – Featuring a world-class poker player, a brother of the president and a reported $900 million in missing cash, the poisonous scandal over Afghanistan's Kabul Bank could be straight out of a thriller. But the near-collapse of the impoverished war-torn country's biggest commercial lender is very real, highlighting endemic corruption among Kabul's elite and threatening major losses for thousands of ordinary people. As President Hamid Karzai's government and Western officials trade fresh accusations over the affair, it also underlines stormy relations between the two sides, five months before a limited withdrawal of international troops starts. Thomas Ruttig, co-director of the Afghanistan Analysts Network think-tank, said the scandal reveals "the tip of the iceberg of a deeply corrupt system" in one of the world's least developed -- and most corrupt -- nations. "It's very high figures for a very poor country and it really illustrates how, under Karzai's government, the gap between the poor and the rich is widening, not narrowing," he added of the reported sum that has gone missing. Kabul Bank's mirrored-glass headquarters is one of a wave of glitzy buildings to have sprung up across the otherwise primitive capital since the Taliban were toppled by a US-led invasion in 2001. The bank was founded by Sherkhan Farnood, a leading international poker player, in 2004. Other co-owners include Mahmood Karzai -- a brother of the president who is reportedly being investigated by a US grand jury over alleged racketeering, extortion and tax evasion -- and a brother of vice-president and ex-warlord Mohammad Qasim Fahim. The bank also contributed money to Karzai's re-election campaign in 2009, finance ministry spokesman Aziz Shams said, insisting this was lawful. "Kabul Bank was a friend to Karzai and it is natural that they have given money to him," Shams added. In September, there was a run on the bank amid stability fears and claims that executives granted themselves huge off-the-book loans which were partly used to buy luxury beach properties in Dubai. This resulted in the bank, which handles some of the payroll for Afghan security forces and government officials, being put under the control of the central bank, Da Afghanistan Bank. The central bank is working on a plan for dealing with the lender's problems and the attorney-general has started a probe into what happened. But there are signs of tension between Kabul and the international community over the way forward. After a visit to Afghanistan, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said last week that the bank should be sold off or wound down. Central bank spokesman Emal Aashor told AFP, though, that it wanted to "restore it back to a normal status" and said there had been no decision on whether it would be sold. The IMF is currently considering a financial assistance programme to help stabilise the troubled Afghan economy after a previous three-year $120-million facility ended in September. It has indicated that this new programme is conditional on an agreement with Afghan officials on resolving the Kabul Bank crisis. The IMF comments prompted the Afghan finance ministry to issue a statement Thursday partly blaming "ineffective international technical assistance and supervision" for the bank's troubles. This in turn drew an angry reaction from the international community. A US official speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity said that responsibility for supervising Afghan banks lay with Afghan authorities and accused them of trying to shirk blame for the affair. Among ordinary Afghans -- for whom corruption is an unpleasant fact of everyday life -- the biggest fear is that the Kabul Bank scandal may contaminate other banks, causing more problems in an already weak economy. "Unsolved questions about what happened at Kabul Bank and why was it allowed to happen are being watched by a significant proportion of Afghans," said Dr Sayed Massoud, an economics lecturer at Kabul University. "This could have a negative effect on people's confidence in banks in Afghanistan." But the scandal, which analysts say could rumble on for months, also underlines serious issues of corruption amongst Kabul's rich and powerful. "It will reinforce the impression that there is a political and economic elite interlinked which makes a lot of money," Ruttig said. "It's really about the shameless behaviour of the kleptocracy." Eighteen people were killed and more than 70 wounded on Saturday when Taliban suicide bombers struck a branch of Kabul Bank in Jalalabad, in the east of the country. The attack did not appear to be linked to the bank's woes. 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