Left in minutes: Ex-Afghan president Ashraf Ghani opens up about fleeing Kabul

Afghanistan’s former president mentioned 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 US officers.
Former President Ashraf Ghani mentioned 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 the town rudderless as US and NATO forces have been within the ultimate phases 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 would be leaving,” Ghani informed BBC radio.His remarks conflicted with different accounts.
Former President Hamid Karzai outdated the Associated Press in an interview earlier this month that Ghani’s departure scuttled the chance for presidency negotiators, together with himself and peace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 exterior 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 mentioned he invited the Taliban into Kabul “to protect the population so that the country, the city doesn’t fall into chaos and the unwanted elements who would probably loot the country, loot shops”.

But Ghani in his radio interview with British General Sir Nick Carter, former chief of defence employees, mentioned he fled “to prevent the destruction of Kabul”, claiming two rival Taliban factions have been bearing down on the town and have 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 pressure shortly took management of the palace and in accordance with humanitarian assist staff, who spoke on situation of anonymity as a result of they wished to talk privately, and who have been there on the time, the Taliban moved to guard their compounds.
Still, 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 US-backed governments had been in energy.

Ghani in his interview denied widespread accusations that he left Afghanistan with a cache of stolen cash. The US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction John Sopko has been tasked with investigating these allegations.
Successive Afghan governments, in addition to unbiased overseas and Afghan contractors, have been accused of widespread corruption over the past 20 years with dozens of stories by Sopko documenting probably the most egregious incidents of corruption.
Washington has spent $146 billion on reconstruction in Afghanistan for the reason that overthrow of the Taliban in 2001, but even earlier than the insurgents returned in August, the poverty stage in Afghanistan was at 54 per cent.
Earlier this week Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, an investigative reporting organisation with 150 journalists in additional than 30 international locations, listed Ghani among the many world’s most corrupt leaders.
Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko was named probably 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 informed by his nationwide safety adviser Hamdullah Mohib that his private safety pressure was not able to defending him, Ghani mentioned, he determined to go away. Saying Mohib, who “was literally terrified”, gave him simply two minutes to resolve whether or not to go away, 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 tackle the speedy and swift collapse of the Afghan army within the weeks main as much as the Taliban’s ultimate arrival in Kabul however he did blame an settlement the US 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 US and NATO forces ending America’s longest conflict. It additionally offered for the discharge of 5,000 Taliban prisoners, which Ghani mentioned strengthened the rebel pressure.