Afghan vice-president proclaims himself legitimate interim president and calls for resistance – telam

Afghan First Vice President Amrullah Saleh said on Monday that he was the country’s legitimate acting head of state after President Ashraf Ghani fled and going underground, he called on the population to “resist” against the Taliban.

“According to the Afghan constitution, in the event of the president’s absence, flight, resignation or death, the first vice president becomes the interim president. I am currently in my country and I am the legitimate interim presidentSaleh wrote on his Twitter account.

Enemy of the Taliban who now rule the country, Saleh withdrew to the last region that was not yet in his hands, the Panshir valley, and from there he called on the population to “resist”.

“Unlike the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), we have not lost heart and we see huge opportunities ahead,” Saleh said, quoted by the news agency. Sputnik press.

The Taliban began their offensive last May after US President Joe Biden announced his intention to withdraw all troops from Afghanistan by the end of this month.

Saleh escaped several Taliban attacks, the most recent in September 2020 when a car bomb exploded as his convoy passed, killing at least 10 people.“

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The Taliban entered Kabul two days ago and pushed President Ghani to flee the country.

“Do not disappoint the millions of people who have listened to me. Never be under the same roof as the Taliban. Never», Wrote the vice-president in English on his Twitter account before going into hiding.

Saleh, from Panshir, fought the Taliban in the 1990s and then served in his country’s government before being overthrown by that group in 1996, when they also entered Kabul.

“My opinion of the Taliban has never changed”, he said last year in an op-ed published by Time magazine.

After the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, he became an important source of information for the CIA, This led him, after the fall of the Taliban, to head, between 2004 and 2010, the National Security Directorate (NDS), the Afghan intelligence agency.

In 2018, he became Minister of the Interior for a few months after joining forces with President Ghani and acceding to the vice-presidency in 2019.

Saleh escaped several Taliban attacks, the most recent in September 2020 when a car bomb exploded as his convoy passed, killing at least 10 people.

A few hours later he reappeared in a video, with his left hand covered in bandages and promising to return every blow. “We will continue our fight,” he said.