Afghan president flees country as U.S. rushes to exit with Taliban on brink of power
Category: News & Politics
Via: perrie-halpern • 3 years ago • 23 commentsBy: Ahmed Mengli, Mushtaq Yusufzai, Rhea Mogul and Andrea Mitchell
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
KABUL, Aghanistan — Afghanistan's president fled the country Sunday as the Taliban and its fighters in Kabul reached the brink of taking political power. Twenty years after it toppled the militant regime, the U.S. rushed to leave the country after the losses of thousands of U.S. lives and billions of dollars failed to bring lasting democracy.
President Ashraf Ghani's departure — and the hurried evacuation of all personnel from the U.S. Embassy — followed a lightning-fast Taliban offensive across the country that brought an embarrassing end to the U.S. military presence after two decades.
Later, video put out by Al Jazeera appeared to show extraordinary images of armed Taliban fighters inside the presidential palace, lounging in chairs, strolling around with their guns and taking pictures of one another. The fighters give a tour to the Al Jazeera journalist, and at one point one rolls up an Afghan flag in the palace and puts it on a mantelpiece.
U.S. officials had clearly not anticipated a possible fall of Kabul this quickly after President Joe Biden announced the full withdrawal of U.S. forces, and they were scrambling both to protect their staff members and to explain the defeat politically.
Abdullah Abdullah, the head of the Afghan National Reconciliation Council, confirmed reports that Ghani had left Afghanistan.
"He left Afghanistan in a hard time, God hold him accountable," Abdullah, a longtime rival of Ghani's, said in an online video.
Ghani's team confirmed his departure to CNBC. In a statement posted to his official Facebook page, Ghani, who said he left Afghanistan to avoid bloodshed, did not specify his location or destination.
As Afghans from the presidential palace to the frenzied streets fled the militant group's rapid advance, the Taliban prepared to take full control of the country once more.
The Taliban ordered their fighters to enter Kabul because they believed police had deserted all their positions, a Taliban spokesman told NBC News, which could not confirm the claims.
The spokesman urged residents of the capital to remain calm.
Earlier, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said fighters would "be on standby on all entrances of Kabul until a peaceful and satisfactory transfer of power is agreed." In a separate statement to NBC News, a Taliban spokesman said those entering Kabul were unarmed on instructions from senior commanders.
U.S. forces evacuated all staff members from the city's U.S. Embassy via Kabul's airport after Biden authorized the deployment of 5,000 troops to the country.
And the Pentagon is sending an additional 1,000 troops to Kabul to help with the deteriorating security situation, the Department of Defense said on Sunday. The battalion was already headed to Kuwait when it was diverted to Afghanistan.
Taliban fighters on a Humvee after entering Kabul on Sunday.Jim Huylebroek / The New York Times via Redux Pictures
Amid the rapid security deterioration, the French government announced it was relocating its embassy to the Kabul Airport, adding that it remained operation and was working to remove any "compatriots still left in the country."
The evacuations come at the end of a rapid U.S. troop withdrawal launched in April and only weeks before the last remaining U.S. forces were due to depart under an Aug. 31 deadline set by Biden.
Biden has remained steadfast in spite of the Taliban blitz. A White House official said Sunday that Biden had spoken to members of his national security team "on the situation in Afghanistan" and would continue to get updates throughout the day.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Chuck Todd on NBC News' "Meet the Press" that Biden was focused "first and foremost" on the safety and security of U.S. personnel. He said the U.S. would maintain a core diplomatic presence, and in effect an embassy, at a location at Kabul's airport.
"We've been very clear with the Taliban that any effort on their part to interrupt our operations, to attack our forces, to attack our personnel, would be met with a very strong, decisive response," he said.
Blinken said the "inability" of the Afghan security forces to defend their country played a "very powerful role" in the rapid Taliban takeover of parts of it. But he said that in terms of the threat posed to the U.S. before Sept. 11, 2001, he thought the U.S. was in a "much better" place.
In a nationwide offensive that has taken just over a week, the militants encircled the Afghan capital as the group surprised Washington, Kabul and even its own fighters with the speed of the campaign.
The Taliban advance and the ensuing collapse of the Afghan government have sent large numbers of civilians fleeing their homes, seeking refuge both from the fighting and the prospect that the Islamist regime that ruled the country before 2001 would be reimposed.
In Kabul, thousands of people were living in parks and open spaces.
Hundreds of people also gathered in front of private banks, trying to withdraw their life savings, while some ATMs stopped distributing money.
On Sunday, Afghan forces at Bagram Airfield, once a bustling mini-city where more than 100,000 U.S. troops passed through the gates, also surrendered to the Taliban, two U.S. defense officials said.
Speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not officially authorized to comment, the defense officials said Taliban had started to release prisoners from the Parwan Detention Facility, some of whom were hardened Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters.
The insurgents also captured the eastern city of Jalalabad, giving them control of one of the main highways into landlocked Afghanistan. They took over the nearby Torkham border post with Pakistan, too, leaving Kabul airport as the only way out of Afghanistan still in government hands.
The advances came after Mazar-e-Sharif, the country's fourth-largest city, fell Saturday to give the insurgents control over all of northern Afghanistan.
Ahmed Mengli reported from Kabul; Mushtaq Yusufzai reported from Peshawar, Pakistan; Rhea Mogul reported from Hong Kong; and Andrea Mitchell and Courtney Kube reported from Washington.
Ahmed Mengli
Ahmed Mengli is a journalist based in Kabul, Afghanistan.
Mushtaq Yusufzai
Mushtaq Yusufzai is a journalist based in Peshawar, Pakistan.
Rhea Mogul
Andrea Mitchell
Andrea Mitchell is chief Washington correspondent and chief foreign affairs correspondent for NBC News.
Courtney Kube, Monica Alba and Saphora Smith contributed.
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Vietnamese.....
Kurds.....
Afghans.....
Who will be next?
If you mean the Iraqi Kurds we still support them; though admittedly it isn't what it should be considering we are keeping a Shai government loyal to Iran in power.
If you mean the Syrian Kurds- they jumped shipped to Russia and Syria; which is where they should have been all along. Better them than us; considering Syrian Kurds are aligned with the terrorist faction of Kurds in Turkey.
Maybe Canada should step in and show the US how it is done; with it's military that you can drown in a bathtub.
A Canadian poet wrote a poem and I can't remember his name or the name of the poem, but a line from it I do remember was: "And leave our defence to the Yankees". Because of the very long and porous border between our countries, the Yankees have no choice but to defend Canada. After all, America defends half the world already, so why not. Of course, hopefully, it would do a better job with Canada than it's done elsewhere.
As for which side is the terrorist one in Turkey, I would say it was the Turks, although the Turks don't like to admit that they're anything except angels on Earth and American Presidents kiss their ass. I can't understand why they haven't been kicked out of NATO. The Kurds that escaped from Turkey are the ones that the Turks have been attacking in Syria.
Of course I know I could be a bit prejucided by what my Armenian good friend and client who bought a home around the corner from mine to be close told me what his grandfather had told him.
Look where Turkey is position geographically to get your answer as to why NATO covets their membership; also as to why Russia is trying to get them to leave NATO,
As for the Kurds, not all Kurds are equal in the eyes of Turkey. They have far less against the Iraqi Kurds; and have made inroads with them.
Meanwhile joe is on vacation and psaki will be circling back after her week off as well.
Now that is called leadership at its finest... LOL
And it gets worse...
"shelter in place"
That is government speak for they are now on their own.
The Taliban had 20 years to plan and prepare for this....
so did the US government and military
so did the US government and milita
it defies belief how incompetently the withdrawal was handled. It’s condemned thousands to needless, brutal deaths at the hands of the taliban.
I'll note that is likely the understatement of the year, if not decade!!
I heard that there are approximately 88,000 Afghanis that we need to get out. All of the interpreters' and their immediate and extended families and any that worked for the American Embassy or companies working there.
If you ask the Biden administration it is only 20,000 they need to evacuate. Seems they can't count anything.
When plan A fails you go to plan B. Where was plan B? The Commander in Chief is completely incompetent.
The real questions are; Where was plan A? And why did they not have one?
True!
Afghanis were clinging on the fuselage of a C-17 as it took off. Most were dislodged before lift-off. At least one held on until the bird was a couple of thousand of feet in the air. Needless to say, he/she did not have a parachute nor wings. That's a long way to fall and think about the really bad fucking mistake you just made. BUT... he/she also might have said a quick prayer of thanks as the death awaiting was likely better than the death that would have been suffered at the hands of the Taliban.
Delta: "I can spread faster than anything"
Taliban to Delta: "Hold my goat"
Biden to Taliban: " you can't enter the US embassy unless your vaccinated.
If I remember correctly, The Taliban wouldn't turn over Bin Laden to the U.S., so the U.S. invaded. With the U.S. assisting the Northern Allicance, Kabul fell in about 5 weeks. The Taliban simply disappeared into the hills.
Then came Karzai and elections. We can all remember the stark images of women in Burqas and the horror of not being able to be as free as western women. Those images were replaced by blue stains on hands to symbolize having voted. Glory, Glory Hallelujah! Somehow, this morphed into nation building and some crazy notion of bringing a western style democracy to this nation. Who do we have to thank for those images?
20 years later with much loss of life and sacrifices, as well as 100s of billions spent to arm and train 300,000 Afghani soldiers to protect what had been built... with no real expectation they would remain on the job, and the real likelihood of the country falling into Taliban hands within a year after exiting. Which was the expectation all along and planning was based on such an outcome.
That it happened even quicker, just indicates the magnitude of waste that the venture was. As a German newspaper stated... "Even in the hour of failure, European politicians can hide behind America’s back and point their fingers at Joe Biden."
The finger pointing was as rapid as the Afghani army disappearing into the hills. Who do we have to thank for that image?
Inflation, crime spikes, immigration crisis and the Afghanistan debacle, this is just one big record of failure for Biden and the Democrats.
Inflation is justified, stop eating meat, your killing the planet.
Crime is only spiking because of white supremacy so don't be bigoted about it, once we pay reparations crime will subside.
Afghanistan is going as planned, not to mention watching people hang on planes and fall from the sky on twitter is pretty awesome!
I wonder how the leaders and their followers of South Korea and Taiwan are feeling these days.