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Khalilzad opens up about Ghani and ‘selfish’ political elite

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(Last Updated On: October 28, 2021)

Former US special envoy for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad said former president Ashraf Ghani’s “intransigence,” the Afghan elite’s “selfishness” and Afghan soldiers’ lack of will to fight was to blame for the rapid takeover of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) in August.

On Ghani’s refusal to change his views, or agree to the formation of a new interim government, Khalilzad said: “We were all surprised by the intransigence of President Ghani in insisting on staying in power till his term ended, despite the fact that he had come out re-elected in a fraudulent election that very few Afghans participated in.”

Addressing a webinar organized by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Washington think tank, on Wednesday, Khalilzad also acknowledged for the first time publicly that the U.S. had discouraged Afghans from holding the presidential elections that led to Ghani’s winning a second term in office.

According to Khalilzad, the U.S. wanted to establish an interim administration that was acceptable to both sides while Afghan politicians and civil society negotiated a political settlement with the IEA.

Khalilzad said Ghani’s “grand miscalculation” was that he did not believe the U.S. would withdraw from the country.

According to Khalilzad, Ghani thought the U.S. forces and intelligence agencies would stay in Afghanistan as it gave them physical proximity to strategically important countries like China, Russia, Iran and Pakistan.

“I tried to persuade him that President [Donald] Trump was very serious, and he said, ‘No, the intelligence and military told me otherwise,’ ” Khalilzad said.

Khalilzad also stated that Ghani miscalculated his own military’s will to fight.

Once the U.S. announced its decision to withdraw, Ghani told Khalilzad, “now I am free to fight the war the Afghan way. In six months now I will defeat the Taliban because you were fighting it poorly.”

Khalilzad went on to say that the fact that an estimated 300,000-strong Afghan army melted away in front of 60,000 IEA fighters was the result of a lack of morale, corruption and poor treatment of the soldiers on the front lines.

He said this also might have been because the soldiers “didn’t believe” in the cause, while the IEA fighters felt otherwise.

Khalilzad also blasted what he called the Afghan elite’s “selfish, self-centered, corrupt” behavior.

“I am disappointed that the elite that we worked with; they didn’t rise to the occasion; this golden opportunity that the American engagement provided,” he said.

In terms of going forward, Khalilzad advocated a robust diplomatic engagement with the IEA that includes an agreement on a “road map that takes into account the trust or mistrust of each other and the behavior that needs to take place over a time period.”

He also said that many in the US want the IEA to suffer and their government to collapse, because “we did not succeed in defeating them, and that has left a bad taste in people’s mouths.”

But he warned that a collapse of government in Afghanistan would lead to a civil war and a humanitarian catastrophe that would provide space for terrorist groups to flourish.

He said the IEA had shown, in the 18 months after signing the Doha agreement, that they could keep their word by not killing a single American even though U.S. air attacks in defense of Afghan forces killed hundreds or even thousands of Taliban during that period.

Khalilzad also said the IEA could benefit from outside help on how to deal with Daesh in Afghanistan.

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ISIS-K leader reportedly living in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province

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(Last Updated On: March 28, 2024)

Sanaullah Ghaffari, also known as Shahab al-Muhajar, is reportedly the ISIS-Khorasan (Daesh) branch leader and is holed up in Pakistan, Reuters reports.

The 29-year-old took over as leader in 2020 and under his leadership the group has carried out extreme attacks as a means of recruiting, Reuters reported.

Reuters noted that little was known about Ghafari before the deadly 2021 ISIS attack on Kabul Airport, which killed 170 Afghan civilians and 13 American soldiers.

But after Friday’s deadly attack in a concert hall in Moscow, which left 139 people dead, Ghaffari’s group has come under intense scrutiny.

Reuters reports that Ghaffari is said to have been involved in several attacks in Afghanistan, Iran, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Pakistan.

Pakistani officials said months ago that Ghaffari had been killed in Kunar province in Afghanistan in June last year, but Reuters has reported that he did not die and instead fled to Pakistan and lives in the border province of Baluchistan.

Abdul Matin Qani, the spokesman of the Ministry of Interior of Afghanistan, says that Daesh has been suppressed in Afghanistan for more than two years and has lost its operational capacity.

The last attack carried out by Daesh in Afghanistan was the attack on the Kabul Bank office in Kandahar last week which left three dead and 12 wounded.

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IPL: Sunrisers thump MI in record breaking match

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(Last Updated On: March 28, 2024)

It was raining records at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad on Wednesday with the hosts Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) clinching a 31-run victory over Mumbai Indians (MI) in Match 8 of the Tata Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024.

Sunrisers’ batting rewrote the record books on a batting belter after the posted 277 for three.

SRH now have the highest team score in the history of the IPL – beating Royal Challengers Bangalore’s (RCB) 263 for five from the 2013 season.

In reply, MI made a spirited effort, and at one stage, were contenders to do the near impossible. In the slog overs, the enormity of the target proved a bit too much, and SRH clinched victory, but not without numerous nervous moments.

To put into perspective the carnage we witnessed – Heinrich Klaasen’s 23-ball half-century was the slowest fifty of the SRH innings.

Travis Head, playing his first match for SRH, raced to the milestone in 18 balls. Abhishek Sharma got there even faster – in 16 balls – to record the quickest fifty by an SRH batter in IPL history.

While Sunrisers notched up the highest total in the 16-year history of the IPL, just as incredibly, Mumbai Indians almost paid them back with the same coin, their batters coming out with a nothing-to-lose attitude.

The sixes kept rolling off the Mumbai bats too, helping them keep up with the asking rate for most of the chase, eventually however, they ran out of steam and finished on 246 for 5, the highest IPL total in a losing cause.

As ESPNcricinfo reported, never were more runs scored in a men’s T20 match (523). Never were most sixes hit in a men’s T20 (38). At the end of the close to four-hour six-fest, only two bowlers returned with an economy rate of under ten an over.

Thursday, March 28 : Match 9

Thursday’s match at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium in Jaipur sees Rajasthan Royals go up against Delhi Capitals.

Fans in Afghanistan can tune in to Ariana Television to watch the match live from 6.30pm. Alternatively the match can be screened live on arianatelevision.com

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Magnitude 5.2 quake jolts Afghanistan

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(Last Updated On: March 28, 2024)

An earthquake measuring a magnitude of 5.2 on the Richter Scale jolted Afghanistan on Thursday afternoon, the National Center for Seismology reported.

The quake was at a depth of 70km and epicentered in the mountainous north-eastern area of Ashkāsham.

The jolt was felt across the region including in Kabul, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan

There were no immediate reports of any casualties.

In October last year, over 2,000 people were killed when four 6.3-magnitude earthquakes struck in Herat province.

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