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Trump calls Afghanistan collapse ‘most humiliating’ moment for US

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(Last Updated On: August 18, 2021)

Former President Donald Trump described the recent events in Afghanistan as the worst humiliation in American history but defended the agreement his administration struck with the Taliban last year.

“It’s a great thing that we’re getting out, but nobody has ever handled a withdrawal worse than Joe Biden,” the former president told Fox News Tuesday. 

“This is the greatest embarrassment, I believe, in the history of our country,” he said. 

Trump sat down for his first interview since the Taliban marched into Kabul Sunday, climaxing a 96-hour conquest that saw Afghanistan’s major cities and provincial capitals fall with little resistance, Reuters reported. 

While he was full of criticism for the Biden administration, Trump also at times echoed his successor’s address to the nation Monday, which cast blame on Afghan military and political leaders for their battlefield collapse and the resulting scenes of chaos.

“I knew they [Afghan security forces] weren’t going to fight … I said, ‘Why are they fighting? Why are these Afghan soldiers fighting against the Taliban?’” Trump told Fox News host Sean Hannity. “And I was told some very bad information by a lot of different people.

“The fact is, they’re among the highest-paid soldiers in the world. They were doing it for a paycheck, because once we stopped, once we left, they stopped fighting … The fact is, our country was paying the Afghan soldiers a fortune. So we were sort of bribing them to fight, and that’s not what it’s all about.”

By contrast, Trump repeatedly praised the Taliban as “good fighters” — at one point telling Hannity that “you have to give them credit for that” — and claimed he got along better with the Islamic fundamentalists than recently deposed Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, who fled the country as Taliban forces closed in, Reuters reported. 

“I never had a lot of confidence, frankly, in Ghani,” the former president recalled. “I said that openly and plainly. I thought he was a total crook. I thought he got away with murder. He spent all his time wining and dining our senators. The senators were in his pocket. That was one of the problems that we had, but I never liked him, and I guess based on his escape with cash, I don’t know, maybe that’s a true story. I would suspect it is. All you have to do is look at his lifestyle, study his houses where he lives. He got away with murder in many different ways.”

In February 2020, the Trump administration announced a cease-fire agreement with the Taliban that called for the withdrawal of all US combat troops from Afghanistan by May 1 of this year. On Monday, Biden argued that his hands were tied by the agreement, Reuters reported. 

“There would have been no ceasefire after May 1. There was no agreement protecting our forces after May 1. There was no status quo of stability without American casualties after May 1,” the president said. “There was only the cold reality of either following through on the agreement to withdraw our forces or escalating the conflict and sending thousands more American troops back into combat in Afghanistan, lurching into the third decade of conflict.”

Trump said Tuesday that the agreement was forged after what he called a “strong conversation” with a Taliban leader he identified as Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, a contender to become the new supreme leader of the new government, Reuters reported. 

“I told him up front, I said, “Look, up front, before we start, let me just tell you right now that if anything bad happens to Americans or anybody else or if you ever come over to our land, we will hit you with a force that no country has ever been hit with before, a force so great you won’t even believe it,’” he recounted.

As a result of the agreement, Trump claimed, “we lost no soldiers in the last year-and-a-half because of me and because of the understanding that we had … In Chicago and in New York and in other cities in the United States, many people die every weekend. We lost no soldiers in Afghanistan because they knew I wasn’t going to put up with it.”

Summing up two decades of American efforts in Afghanistan, Trump described the initial decision to invade in October 2001 as “the worst decision ever made” and argued that the US should have limited its retaliation for the 9/11 attacks to airstrikes, Reuters reported. 

As more grim reports emerged of thousands of Americans stuck in Taliban territory, with checkpoints between them and Kabul’s international airport, Trump said: “ I looked at that big, monster cargo plane yesterday, with people grabbing the side and trying to get flown out of Afghanistan because of their fear, their incredible fear, and they’re blowing off the plane from 2,000 feet up in the air.” 

“Nobody’s ever seen anything like that. That blows the helicopters in Vietnam away. That’s not even a contest. This has been the most humiliating period of time I’ve ever seen.”

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TAPI gas company CEO satisfied with project’s progress

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(Last Updated On: March 28, 2024)

The minister of mines and petroleum, Shahabuddin Delawar met with the executive director of the TAPI project and the ambassador of Turkmenistan in Kabul on Thursday to discuss progress around the key project.

Murad Amanov, head of the Turkmenistan–Afghanistan–Pakistan–India (TAPI) Gas Pipeline project, expressed his satisfaction with the recent progress of the project and talked about the practical roll out of the project.

Delawar said that the preliminary work of TAPI is progressing quickly and that the pipeline will be put into operation in the near future.

TAPI is a natural gas pipeline being developed by the Galkynysh – TAPI Pipeline Company Limited with participation of the Asian Development Bank.

The pipeline will transport natural gas from the Galkynysh Gas Field in Turkmenistan through Afghanistan into Pakistan and then to India.

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UK’s Mercer faces 10-day deadline in Afghanistan war crimes inquiry

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(Last Updated On: March 27, 2024)

Johnny Mercer, the former UK Minister for Veterans Affairs, has been given 10 days to reveal the source of allegations that British troops engaged in war crimes in Afghanistan, or face a potential prison sentence.

British media reported on Tuesday that Mercer, following his allegations regarding the killing of Afghan civilians by British forces, was ordered to reveal the sources of his information.

The BBC reported that a public inquiry commissioned by the UK government into the actions of its forces in Afghanistan has directed Mercer to disclose the names of individuals who leaked information to him about alleged war crimes and cover-ups by special forces, or he may face imprisonment.

Although separate investigations have sought to verify these claims, the British government has yet to officially confirm them.

Earlier this month, Mercer, who served in military missions in Afghanistan, told the court that despite the information he possesses, he cannot confirm the killing of Afghan civilians by British forces between 2010 and 2013.

In court, he also stated that the claim British soldiers killed unarmed civilians in their sleep does not contradict his findings, but he admitted reluctance to believe it.

According to Mercer, British forces were allegedly instructed to carry an unregistered weapon — one not associated with NATO forces — to place next to the unarmed Afghan individuals they had killed.

The Islamic Emirate’s spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid says the countries that had troops in Afghanistan for 20 years all committed war crimes.

Mujahid stated that if the investigation carries on, it will be a big step and that the crimes committed should be investigated transparently.

“The crimes that have been committed should be investigated transparently because this was not the work of a few soldiers but a plan that was drawn and crimes were committed in Afghanistan,” he added.

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Floods leave two dead in Faryab and Sar-e-Pul

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(Last Updated On: March 27, 2024)

Local officials in Faryab and Sar-e-Pul say heavy rain and floods have claimed two lives in these two provinces.

Rain and floods also caused widespread damage and financial losses.

In addition to the loss of lives and money, floods have closed roads in some districts in these two provinces, officials said.

According to them, the destruction of agricultural lands, residential houses, and bridges is widespread and has made life difficult for the people.

Meanwhile, the families who suffered losses during the floods are demanding immediate assistance from the government and aid agencies.

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