A family confidant killed Ahmed Wali Karzai, the half brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, inside his house in central Kandahar on Tuesday. For those of us who've been to Kandahar, and heard the tales of the size of shadow he cast, it's hard to believe the ex-Chicago restaurant owner, paid C.I.A. asset — and oh yeah — the man considered to be one of the most corrupt men in Afghanistan, is actually gone.  

U.S. officials as influential as the late Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke never managed to maneuver his removal as head of the Kandahar Provincial Council, where the rumors of his huge cuts from the opium game became so brazen and his hold on power so complete, he'd long come to epitomize the rottenness of the entire Karzai regime.

But now he's dead, killed by Sadar Mohammed, a friend. And what happens next — as explained by Matthieu Akins in a Foreign Policy piece analyzing the potential fallout, doesn't appear good.

A boy stands next to a mosque in Sangsar that U.S. troops paid to have refurbished. The mud brick structure is painted white, though it is a rarity to paint any mud building in Kandahar.

After a helicopter medevac mission, when the rotors stop turning and the screaming turbines wind down, the crew's job is not over. Often there is a significant amount of cleaning to be done before they can go out again.

All of the Black Hawk's glass needs to be regularly cleaned — the result of countless 200 mph collisions with Kandahar's various insect species. Some particularly tough bug splatters need to be scraped off with a credit card.

Fog of War: Soldiers from 10th Mountain Division make their way through thick smoke after blasting a mud brick wall apart in Kandahar.