Afghanistan‘s former president stated he had no alternative however to abruptly go away Kabul because the Taliban closed in and denied an settlement was within the works for a peaceable takeover, disputing the accounts of former Afghan and U.S. officers.
Former President Ashraf Ghani stated in a BBC interview that aired Thursday that an adviser gave him simply minutes to resolve to desert the capital metropolis. He additionally denied widespread accusations that he left Afghanistan with hundreds of thousands in stolen cash.
Ghani’s sudden and secret departure Aug. 15 left town rudderless as U.S. and NATO forces had been within the closing levels of their chaotic withdrawal from the nation after 20 years.
“On the morning of that day, I had no inkling that by late afternoon I might be leaving,” Ghani instructed BBC radio.
His remarks conflicted with different accounts.
Learn extra:
Taliban had been invited into Kabul, says former Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai
Former President Hamid Karzai outdated the Related Press in an interview earlier this month that Ghani’s departure scuttled the chance for presidency negotiators, together with himself and peace council chairman Abdullah Abdullah, to achieve an Eleventh-hour settlement with the Taliban, who had dedicated to staying outdoors the capital.
After calling the federal government protection minister Bismillah Khan, the inside minister and police chief and discovering all had fled the capital, Karzai stated he invited the Taliban into Kabul “to guard the inhabitants in order that the nation, town doesn’t fall into chaos and the undesirable parts who would most likely loot the nation, loot retailers.”
However Ghani in his radio interview with British Gen. Sir Nick Carter, former chief of protection workers, stated he fled “to forestall the destruction of Kabul,” claiming two rival Taliban factions had been bearing down on town and had been able to enter and wage a bitter battle for management. There was no proof upon the Taliban entry of the rival factions Ghani referred to.
The rebel drive shortly took management of the palace and in accordance with humanitarian assist employees, who spoke on situation of anonymity as a result of they wished to talk privately, and who had been there on the time, the Taliban moved to guard their compounds.
Nonetheless, the Taliban’s entry into the capital was met with widespread concern and a deep longing by many to flee their desperately poor homeland regardless of billions of worldwide cash over the 20 years the U.S.-backed governments had been in energy.
Ghani in his interview denied widespread accusations that he left Afghanistan with a cache of stolen cash. The U.S. Particular Inspector Normal for Afghanistan Reconstruction John Sopko has been tasked with investigating these allegations.
Successive Afghan governments, in addition to unbiased international and Afghan contractors, have been accused of widespread corruption over the past 20 years with dozens of reviews by Sopko documenting essentially the most egregious incidents of corruption. Washington has spent US$146 billion on reconstruction in Afghanistan because the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001, but even earlier than the insurgents returned in August, the poverty stage in Afghanistan was at 54 p.c.
Earlier this week Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Venture, an investigative reporting group with 150 journalists in additional than 30 nations, listed Ghani among the many world’s most corrupt leaders.
Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko was named essentially the most corrupt with Ghani, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and former Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz among the many finalists for the title of most corrupt.
After being instructed by his nationwide safety adviser Hamdullah Mohib that his private safety drive was not able to defending him, Ghani stated, he determined to depart. Saying Mohib, who “was actually terrified,” gave him simply two minutes to resolve whether or not to depart, Ghani insisted he was unsure the place he can be taken even after he was on the helicopter on the brink of evacuate Kabul.
Ghani didn’t handle the fast and swift collapse of the Afghan navy within the weeks main as much as the Taliban’s closing arrival in Kabul however he did blame an settlement the U.S. signed with the Taliban in 2020 for the eventual collapse of his authorities.
That settlement laid out situations for the ultimate withdrawal of the remaining U.S. and NATO forces ending America’s longest conflict. It additionally supplied for the discharge of 5,000 Taliban prisoners, which Ghani stated strengthened the rebel drive.
© 2021 The Canadian Press