Taliban chant victory for presidential palace, people flee Kabul in droves

The Taliban entered Kabul on Sunday and they shouted “victory” from the government palace, a few hours after the President of Afghanistan Achraf Ghani he fled abroad in the dramatic end of 20 years of foreign military intervention and a three-month insurgent lightning offensive.

“The Taliban have won”Ghani said on Facebook, claiming to have left the country to avoid a “bloodbath” because “countless patriots would have been martyred and Kabul destroyed” if he had stayed.

“Military units from the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan entered the city of Kabul to provide security,” insurgent spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid tweeted. “Its progress continues normally “he added.

At night Afghan television broadcast footage of Afghan fighters inside the palace and shouting “victory”.

“Our country has been liberated and the mujahedin are victorious in Afghanistan, ”an activist told Al Jazeera news channel from the presidential palace.

As previously reported by three senior Taliban officials to AFP, a meeting took place at the palace on the security situation in the capital.

People

As the day wore on panic seizes the capital. Shops have closed and huge traffic jams have formed, and thousands of police and other security forces have left their posts and uniforms.

In most banks it was possible to see a large crowd, with people looking to withdraw their money while they had time.

Videos featuring groups of heavily armed Taliban fighters were posted on social media patrolling the big cities, with white flags and saluting the population.

In the district of Taimani, in the center of the capital, fear, uncertainty and incomprehension was visible on the faces of many.

“We note the return of the Taliban to Afghanistan, and we hope that your arrival will bring peace and not a bloodbath. I remember when I was a child the atrocities committed by the Taliban, “Tariq Nezami, a 30-year-old businessman, told AFP.

Unstoppable advance

In 10 days, the radical Islamist movement, which launched an offensive in May taking advantage of the start of the withdrawal of American and foreign troops, took control of almost the entire country.

Now the insurgents are at the gates of power, twenty years after being expelled by a coalition led by Washington, following its refusal to hand over Osama bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaeda, after the September 11 attacks in the United States.

The defeat is total for both the government as well as for the Afghan security forces, to which the United States it has been financing for twenty years with tens of billions of dollars.

Shortly before the Taliban’s announcement, former Vice President Abdullah Abdullah was the first to announce that Ghani had “left” his country, after seven years in power, without specifying where he had gone.

Ghani also did not specify where he is, but according to the Afghan channel Tolo News, he is in Tajikistan.

For Ghani to step down was one of the Taliban’s main demands in peace talks with the Afghan government, although the president he had chosen to keep the post until now.

Insurgent spokesman Suhail Shaheen told the BBC that they hoped to have a peaceful handover “in the next few days”. The Taliban also promised that they were not seeking revenge on anyone, not even the military or officials who worked for the current government.

For his part, the Minister of the Interior, Abdul Sattar Mirzakwal, assured that it would be carried out a “peaceful transfer of power” to a transitional government.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has announced that the evacuation of US diplomats and Afghan civilians who have cooperated with the US in the past and who may fear for their lives has begun. The operation involves around 30,000 people and 5,000 American troops have been deployed to Kabul airport for it.

The United States Embassy, ​​for its part, said it had “information on shooting at the airport”, although this could not be confirmed.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance is helping keep the airport safe and functioning, where Westerners and Afghans flock to flee the country.

US President Joe Biden, defended his decision to end 20 years of war, the longest the United States has ever seen.

“I am the fourth president in power with an American military presence in Afghanistan […] I do not want and will not pass this war on to a fifth, “he said on Sunday.

“It’s not Saigon“US Secretary of State Antony Blinken assured CNN, alluding to the fall of the Vietnamese capital in 1975, a memory still painful for the United States.

Faced with this situation, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson urged Westerners to adopt “a common position” against the Taliban “to prevent Afghanistan from once again becoming fertile ground for terrorism.”

Strict Islam

The Taliban imposed a strict version of Islam when they ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001.

Women could neither work nor go out without being accompanied by a man, and young women and girls were not allowed to go to school. Thieves have had their hands cut off, murderers have been publicly executed and homosexuals have been killed.

Today, they try to give a more moderate image and they promised that if they returned to power they would respect human rights, especially those of women, albeit in accordance with “Islamic values”.

Source: AFP

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