The Afghan ambassador to Tajikistan said in a press statement on Wednesday that he "demands" the "thieves" who stole from the Afghan people be arrested, including Ghani. The envoy said that he asked the Interpol to pay attention to the case.See also: As America's attempt to Westernise Afghanistan by force fails, Kabul may now find its place in Russian & Chinese-dominated Eurasia
The ambassador, Mohammad Zahir Aghbar, insisted that the former Afghan officials, including the ousted president, should be brought to an "international court" so that they could be tried and "the people's wealth and finances can be returned." The envoy said that the president and some other officials "stole" from Afghanistan's treasury.
Ghani left Afghanistan as the Taliban closed in on the capital last weekend, and later posted on Facebook to explain that he left his presidential post in an effort to thwart the "massacring" of civilians and avoid heavy bloodshed in Kabul.
Is that why he took a load of loot with him, too?
According to the Russian Embassy in Afghanistan, Ghani arrived at the Kabul airport with several cars laden with cash and valuables. On Wednesday, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) confirmed that the ousted Afghan president and his family were allowed into the country "on humanitarian grounds."
The Afghan embassy in Tajikistan also stated that First Vice President Amrullah Saleh was "officially the acting president" after Ghani's "escape" from Afghanistan. The embassy also posted photographs of Ghani's framed image being replaced with that of Saleh.
Saleh declared himself Afghanistan's new, legitimate leader in a tweet on Tuesday. He also said he was currently in the country and vowed not to give in to the Taliban militants, whom he described as "terrorists" and said he would not work with the Islamist regime.
It is unclear if Saleh wields any real power on the ground, despite his declarations on Twitter, since the Taliban is now in firm control of all major cities, including Kabul.
A spokesman for the militant group, Zabihullah Mujahid, held its first international media press conference on Tuesday, where he made numerous sweeping statements and said the Taliban is focused on forming a new government, claiming it would observe women's rights and pardon its wartime enemies.
"I'm left with some grave questions in my mind about his ability to lead our nation as commander-in-chief. To have read this so wrong - or, even worse, to have understood what was likely to happen and not care."Crocker, who also represented the U.S. in Afghanistan under the Bush administration from 2002 to 2003, said the collapse of Afghan forces amid the U.S. troop withdrawal was the result of
"a total lack of coordinated, post-withdrawal planning on our part. That's why this is all so sad. It is a self-inflicted wound."The former ambassador told the news outlet that the "direction" of the Taliban's military offensive was "predictable," but the "trajectory was not."
"Over and over again, I see other people talk about our mission, your mission, and the context of it being immigration or the current crisis today being an immigration crisis. I firmly believe that it is a national security crisis. Immigration is just a subcomponent of it, and right now, it's just a cover for massive amounts of smuggling going across the southwest border — to include TSDBs at a level we have never seen before. That's a real threat."TSDB refers to known or suspected terrorists, as identified in the FBI's Terrorist Screening Database.
"Your peers or you are taking criminals, pedophiles, rapists, murderers, and like I said before, even TSDB alerts off the streets and keeping them safe from America. Even if we processed several thousand migrants that day and even if thousands of them were allowed into the U.S., you still took those threats off the street, and I think that's worth it. So please don't ever undersell how important your mission is."
"Like many similar projects, it was based on an exaggeration of the threat and not very clear geopolitical intentions. Unrealistic attempts to democratize a multi-tribal society have added to this."The Soviet Union sent troops to Afghanistan in 1979, in support of the socialist government, to fight against the Mujahideen. The conflict is seen by many as a proxy of the Cold War, as the Islamic guerrillas were backed by the US, the UK and other Western nations.
Comment: