KATHMANDU: Amrullah Saleh, overthrown Afghan vice president and self-proclaimed caretaker president, has said the Taliban had the full support of Pakistan all these years and that Pakistan was never a mere sanctuary to the militant organization but the whole of Pakistan was its strong support base.
Giving an exclusive interview to CNN News-18 on Wednesday, Saleh said so, adding, the United States could not influence Pakistan as it wanted, and whatever amount the US gave, Pakistan utilized the same to support the terrorist outfit in Afghanistan. “The more the US paid to Pakistan, the more Pakistan got emboldened to provide services and aid to Taliban so that the issue of a nuclear state sponsoring terrorism and insurgency against Western allies and Afghan state was never addressed,” he said.
Saleh is a busy bee putting his word out and amassing support to build an anti-Taliban front (alliance), which is currently in its infancy in the Panjshir Valley of Afghanistan.
He also noted that the Doha talks legitimatized the Taliban but the outfit did not honor its commitments and fooled the international community. “The purpose of the Doha office was to keep the international community divided, keep them hopeful of a peace process which did not exist. But they were investing on military conquest and Pakistan backed them wholeheartedly,” he stated.
Another point he attributed for the fall of the Afghan government was that the U.S. pressured and blackmailed the Afghan government at one point in time to release Taliban prisoners, by saying it would cut down on all support to the Afghan government if they did not do so.
“When we asked them if they were sure these people (Taliban prisoners) do not end up back on the frontline, their answer was NO! Whereas all the prisoners ended up at the frontline. So, it was not a prisoner release, it was gifting the Taliban a division of highly radicalized fighters.”
However, he was of the view that it was futile to delve into how the Afghan state fell into the hands of the Taliban. He said the bottom line was that Afghanistan was now under the Taliban and though the US and NATO forces departed from the war-torn country, the Afghan people were left to fend for themselves. “Afghan people cannot be evacuated. The country has sunk into a tragedy as known terrorist organizations have taken over Afghanistan.”
He went on to add that a known money launderer who facilitated transactions between al Qaeda sympathizers and the Taliban was named the governor of the Afghan central bank – Da Afghanistan Bank (DAB). Saleh was referring to Haji Mohammad Idris, without naming him, who was picked as an acting head of the central bank on Monday.
“It is a shame that the Haqqanis are running Kabul and it is a betrayal. I do not want to be part of that shame and betrayal and we will fight until the enemy realizes that Afghanistan should remain Afghanistan and not become Talibanistan.”
“It wasn’t the Taliban who won this war, it was the lack of political will in Washington that led to the present-day situation in Afghanistan,” Saleh said. On American role and abrupt drawdown, he said it was a purely wrong political judgment on part of US politicians and they were to pay the price of that wrong decision.
“You know this was never a military or an intelligence decision, it was a purely political decision. We remain grateful to the US government and American people for all they did over the past 20 years but this one political misjudgment has brought about this fiasco,” he remarked about the Taliban takeover of the country.
Regarding his own role and assessment of the Doha agreement in September 2020 between the US and the Taliban, he said, “We were warning the US of this present consequences for the past two years but we were ignored and now they are paying the price.” He, however, added that Afghans were paying the heaviest price. Nevertheless, the US was paying the price in terms of reputation, credibility, and the weight of their word, vows, and promises, he added.
Acknowledging that he was a major player and continues to be a person of significance, he admitted his government failed to have sway over the US decision. “Did we have any say in the US decision or the US-initiated negotiation with Taliban? No! Though they did take note of what we were saying, we could not manage to influence their decision,” he said.
He clarified that when a superpower such as the US makes a decision regarding which way to move ahead, “there is little or nothing we could do to change their attitude or direction.”
After the Taliban took over the Afghan nation on August 15 following a political settlement with the United States, then-President Ashraf Ghani fled the country with four choppers full of cash, as claimed by the Russian Embassy in Kabul, and Vice President Saleh went to the Panjshir Valley where he hails from.
In Panjshir, Saleh is with Ahmad Massoud, son of the legendary mujahideen commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, with an anti-Taliban force National Resistance Front of Afghanistan (NRF). Saleh had joined the Northern Alliance led by the senior Massoud in the 1990s and fought against the Taliban expansion then.
Given his anti-Taliban roots, the ex-Vice President Saleh along with junior Massoud is determined to fight the Taliban with the remnants of the fighters they have. According to media reports, NRF has about 6,000 fighters, including special units of the previous Afghan army and local militia, in Panjshir.
Both Saleh and Massoud have been trying hard to gather financial and tactical support for their cause of posing a challenge and resistance to the Taliban. However, their efforts are fizzling with major foreign powers not yet ready to extend their support openly to either the Taliban or the NRF.
Junior Massoud also wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post to support his cause, calling on the western powers to provide NRF with supplies of weapons and ammunition. On the other hand, Saleh with his Tajik roots is making use of his Twitter account and international public relations imploring foreign governments to come to their aid.
Meanwhile, the Taliban fighters have surrounded the Panjshir Valley from all sides and Massoud is engaged in negotiations with the Taliban. Ironically, even Massoud’s NRF does not recognize Saleh as the acting President of the country.
Nevertheless, they have been trying to leverage their impenetrable strategic location and a small but capable militia to keep out the Taliban from the Panjshir Valley.
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