Ashraf Ghani leaves Afghanistan as Taliban enter Kabul
High-level delegation of Afghan political leadership including Speaker Wolesi Jirga Mir Rehman Rehamni also arrived in Islamabad on Sunday.
KABUL, ( Web News )
Afghanistan’s embattled President Dr. Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai fled the country on Sunday as the Taliban moved further into Kabul, officials said.
Ashraf Ghani flew out of the country, two officials told”The Associated Press”, speaking on condition of anonymity as they weren’t authorised to brief journalists. Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, the head of the Afghan National Reconciliation Council, later confirmed Ghani had left in an online video.
“He left Afghanistan in a hard time, God hold him accountable,” Abdullah said.
“Reuters” quoted a senior interior ministry official as saying that Ghani “has left the capital Kabul for Tajikistan”. It is unclear whether Ghani has resigned from the post of president.
Asked for comment, the president’s office said it “cannot say anything about Ashraf Ghani’s movement for security reasons”. A representative of the Taliban said the group was checking on Ghani’s whereabouts.
Ashraf Ghani’s countrymen and foreigners alike also raced for the exit, signalling the end of a 20-year Western experiment aimed at remaking Afghanistan.
The news first came to the fore when Afghan news outlet “TOLO News” cited sources as saying Ashraf Ghani has left Afghanistan.
A Taliban spokesman has said that Taliban fighters have entered Kabul in response to a “law and order issue”, “The Guardian” reported.
Journalists reporting from on the ground, including former “Wall Street Journal” reporter Habib Khan, said the Taliban will enter the city to secure areas abandoned by the government in order to “control the chaos”.
Meanwhile, the “CNN” reported that a high-level Afghan government delegation will travel to Doha “soon” for talks with the Taliban.
“The situation is changing by the minute but we could expect an Afghan government delegation that has more power and authority to travel to Doha soon,” a source privy to the intra-Afghan negotiations told “CNN”.
The development comes shortly after a spokesman for the Taliban told the “BBC” the group want to take control of Afghanistan “in the next few days”, as their fighters encircled Kabul, the capital.
“In next few days, we want a peaceful transfer,” an important member of the Taliban negotiation team in Doha, Muhammad Sohail Shaheen, told the “BBC”.
Sohail Shaheen laid out the policies of the Taliban ahead of an expected power transfer that would re-install the group two decades after US-led forces toppled them in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks.
“We want an inclusive Islamic government… that means all Afghans will be part of that government,” Shaheen said. “We will see that in the future as the peaceful transfer is taking place.”
He also said foreign embassies and workers would not be targeted by the group’s fighters and they should remain in the country.
“There will be no risk to diplomats, NGOs, to anyone. All should continue their work as they were continuing in the past. They won’t harm them, they should remain.”
Rebuffing fears the country would be plunged back to the dark days of the group’s ultra-conservative version of Islamic law, Shaheen said the Taliban will instead seek a “new chapter” of tolerance.
“We want to work with any Afghan, we want to open a new chapter of peace, tolerance, peaceful coexistence and national unity for the country and for the people of Afghanistan,” he said.
But many officials, soldiers and police have surrendered or abandoned their posts, fearing reprisals against anyone suspected of working with the Western-backed government or Western forces. Shaheen said that would not happen.
“We reassure that there is no revenge on anyone. Any case will be investigated.”
The Doha-based spokesman said the group would also review its relationship with the United States, which it has waged a deadly insurgency against for decades.
“Our relationship was in the past,” he said. “In future, if it will touch our agenda no more, it will be a new chapter of cooperation.”
Acting defence minister Bismillah Mohammadi, earlier in the day, said that the president had handed the authority of solving the crisis in the country to political leaders. Mohammadi, according to “TOLO News” said that a delegation will travel to Doha on Monday for talks on the country’s situation.
Meanwhile a high-level delegation of Afghan political leadership including Speaker Wolesi Jirga Mir Rehman Rehamni also arrived in Islamabad on Sunday.
“Just received a high level Afghan political leadership delegation including Speaker Ulusi Jirga Mir Rehman Rehmani, Salah-ud-din Rabbani, Mohammad Yunus Qanooni, Ustad Mohammad Karim Khalili, Ahmad Zia Massoud, Ahmad Wali Massoud, Abdul Latif Pedram, and Khalid Noor,” Pakistan’s Special Representative for Afghanistan Mohammad Sadiq wrote on his Twitter handle. He said that matters of mutual interest will be discussed during the Afghan political leadership’s visit.