The U.S.-led effort to flush the Taliban from a stronghold in southern Afghanistan—the first test of the new surge strategy to turn the tide of the war—has been dealt a setback by a dispute over the personal history of the man chosen by the Afghan government to run the town. The top allied commander in southern Afghanistan says coalition officials in the past two weeks have been told that the new administrator of Marjah, Abdul Zahir, served four years in a German prison for assault. Behind closed doors, Western officials have been pressing Afghan officials to have Mr. Zahir removed from his post, which he assumed last month after thousands of U.S. Marines and Afghan soldiers fought their way into the Taliban-held town, say other coalition officials. Mr. Zahir, in an interview, says he neither committed nor was charged with such an offense. He says the allegations are the product of malicious rumor-mongering by personal and political enemies. "I don't think it is the Americans or the British who are spreading these rumors," Mr.[Read more...]