WASHINGTON, Aug 24: The US State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service is to take over Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s security detail next month, a State Department official said on Saturday.

Karzai is currently being protected by a team of 60 US troops who took over his personal security after the assassination of Vice President Abdul Qadir in Kabul on July 6.

The department will use its own security personnel and will seek support from the military and private contractors to accomplish this mission, said a State Department spokesperson, Jo-Anne Prokopowicz.

“It is rare but not unprecedented to provide security to a foreign head of state,” she added. “We provided similar protection to President Jean-Bertrand Aristide” when he returned to Haiti in Oct 1994 from exile in Washington.

The decision to protect Karzai was taken after “high-level discussions” with the Afghan government and between the Defence Department and the State Department in Washington, Prokopowicz said.

Explaining the reasons for taking over the responsibility, Prokopowicz described Afghanistan as “a dangerous and unstable place” and said one of the key objectives of the international community is to “improve security for the whole nation”.

One part of this mission, she said, was to provide presidential protection.

“If we are to build and enhance the authority of the central government that government must be in a position to operate without the fear of terrorist retaliation.”