Aug 15,2021:Afghanistan’s embattled president has left the country, joining his fellow citizens and foreigners in a stampede fleeing the advancing Taliban and signalling the end of a 20-year Western experiment aimed at remaking Afghanistan.
Abdullah Abdullah, the head of the Afghan National Reconciliation Council, confirmed in an online video that President Ghani had left on Sunday.
“The former president of Afghanistan left Afghanistan, leaving the country in this difficult situation,” Abdullah said. “God should hold him accountable.”
Ghani flew out of the country, two officials told The Associated Press news agency, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to brief journalists. Local media reported that Ghani left for Tajikistan.
Abdullah said he wants security forces to continue providing security for Kabul and asked the Taliban to wait for talks before entering the city.
But the Taliban, which for hours had been on the outskirts of Kabul, announced soon after that they would move further into a city gripped by panic throughout the day as helicopters raced overhead to evacuate personnel from the US embassy. Smoke rose near the compound as staff destroyed important documents. Several other Western missions also prepared to pull their people out.
Civilians fearing that the Taliban could reimpose the kind of brutal rule that all but eliminated women’s rights rushed to leave the country as well, lining up at cash machines to withdraw their life savings. The desperately poor – who had left homes in the countryside for the hoped-for safety in the capital – remained in their thousands in parks and open spaces throughout the city.
In a stunning rout, the Taliban has captured 26 of Afghanistan’s 34 provincial capitals since August 6, despite the billions of dollars spent by the US and NATO over nearly 20 years to build up Afghan security forces.
Just days earlier, an American military assessment estimated it would be a month before the capital would come under the Taliban pressure.
Instead, the Taliban swiftly defeated, co-opted or sent Afghan security forces fleeing from wide swaths of the country, even though they had some air support from the US military.
On Sunday, the Taliban reached the outskirts of Kabul but apparently remained outside the city’s downtown. Sporadic gunfire echoed at times though the streets were largely quiet.
