HELMAND GOVERNOR SENT TO PARLIAMENT; REPLACED BY

C O N F I D E N T I A L KABUL 005038

SIPDIS

STATE FOR SA/FO AMBASSADOR QUINN, S/CT, SA/A
NSC FOR AHARRIMAN, KAMEND
CENTCOM FOR POLAD, CG CFA-A, CG CJTF-76
USAID FOR AID/ANE, AID/DCHA/DG

E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/03/2015
TAGS: PGOV PREL PINR KDEM AF
SUBJECT: HELMAND GOVERNOR SENT TO PARLIAMENT; REPLACED BY
SENIOR NSC ADVISOR

REF: KABUL 5010

Classified By: ACTING POL COUNSELOR MARY TOWNSWICK FOR REASONS 1.4 (B)
AND (D)


1. (U) President Karzai has named Engineer Mohammad Daoud,
currently holding a senior position at the National Security
Council, as the new Governor of Helmand Province. Per
reftel, outgoing Governor Mullah Shir Mohammad Akhund is
leaving Helmand to take a seat in the Meshrano Jirga (MJ,
Upper House of Parliament).

BIO INFORMATION
--------------


2. (SBU) Engineer Mohammad Daoud was born in 1956 in Helmand
Province. He received his B.Sc. in civil engineering from
Kabul Polytechnic in 1976 and later, in 1982, began his
service as a site engineer and chief engineer in the building
department of the Minister of Defense in Kabul. After three
years at the MOD, Daoud left Kabul to become a refugee in
Pakistan, where he worked for the next ten years with UN
humanitarian agencies assisting Afghan refugees based in
Pakistan's Baluchistan Province.


3. (SBU) In 1995, Daoud joined an Afghan NGO working in
reconstruction and relief activities in SW Afghanistan. In
1996 he was appointed coordinator of the SW Afghanistan and
Baluchistan Association for Coordination (SWABAC),a national
and international NGO coordination body. He returned to
Kabul in 2002 to join the Office of the National Security
Council (NSC),first working as Director of
Administration/Finance and later as Director of Policy and
Oversight. Daoud remained at the NSC, working as the focal
point for the PRT (Taliban/HiG reconciliation) program and
detainee-related issues in the ONSC until being appointed by
President Karzai as Governor of Helmand on December 12.


4. (C) COMMENT: Embassy interlocutors have found Daoud to be
responsive and competent. His English, although measured and
deliberate, is quite fluent. While he will doubtless be a
major improvement over the outgoing governor, Helmand's gain
will be the NSC's loss. This appointment clearly shows
President Karzai's intention to put one of his own people in
a province that is important for both security and
counternarcotics terms. END COMMENT.

NEUMANN