KABUL - President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan appears poised to announce a major cabinet and national-security shake-up, Western officials said on Wednesday, in a move that could shift a long-serving professional police officer, Ghulam Mujtaba Patang, to head the Interior Ministry while possibly placing a powerful Karzai loyalist who has faced accusations of corruption and human rights abuses, Asadullah Khalid, in charge of the country’s main spy agency.

According to two Western officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation, top advisers at Mr. Karzai’s presidential palace have also been informing Western officials that Mr. Karzai intends to nominate a politically influential Tajik commander, Bismillah Khan Mohammedi, to take over the Defense Ministry — a move that may provoke members of the Afghan Parliament who voted just three weeks ago to dismiss Mr. Mohammedi, who had been serving as interior minister.

The two Western officials also said Karzai aides had disclosed in recent days that Mr. Patang and Mr. Khalid would be appointed to the two other security posts.

One Western official, however, cautioned that there was still some chance that the names could be a trial balloon designed to elicit a reaction from American and NATO officials who still are in charge of providing most of the country’s security, or from Afghan lawmakers who must ratify the choices.

Nothing is set in stone until Mr. Karzai makes a formal announcement, and the president may yet change his mind, although a decision might come as soon as Saturday, the official said. There were also signs on Wednesday that Mr. Mohammedi could face a tough vote in Parliament.

But some Afghan analysts said the appointments, if formally made, would appear to show an effort by Mr. Karzai to consolidate his power ahead of the 2014 elections. Mr. Karzai won a second five-year term in 2009 under disputed circumstances and evidence of wholesale voting fraud, but he cannot run again in two years because of term limits.

The prospect of Mr. Karzai’s choosing Mr. Patang, Mr. Mohammedi and Mr. Khalid for the country’s three most important security jobs suggests that Mr. Karzai may already be maneuvering before the election or even to find ways to retain a long-term hold on power once he has left office, said Jawid Kohistani, a security analyst based in Kabul.

“With this cabinet reshuffling, President Karzai is trying to consolidate his grip on power,” Mr. Kohistani said. “He is not thinking only about his remaining two years in office. He has long-term plans, and this reshuffling is just the first step. Indeed, he wants to have full control over all government apparatuses to make sure that whoever from his team runs for president in the upcoming elections wins.”

Mr. Patang, who does not have the sort of deep political or ethnic power base that ministers often possess, is seen as a competent, long-serving police official and someone whom Mr. Karzai can control.

In an interview on Wednesday, Mr. Patang seemed certain he had been nominated for the post of interior minister. “I am almost sure that I am proposed by the president,” he said. “It will be done in a week.”

Currently, he is a deputy minister in charge of the Afghan Public Protection Force, a government agency that took over most private security jobs from private companies earlier this year under a decree by Mr. Karzai.
He said that he had not spoken to Mr. Karzai directly but had learned about the decision from the media and the minister of parliamentary affairs.
“I have not spoken to him about this,” Mr. Patang said of Mr. Karzai, adding that “I hope that others will support this.” (AP)