VIDEO: Afghan President Ghani flees country as Taliban enter Kabul
- 15 Aug 2021
Gulf Today Report
Afghanistan's President Ashraf Ghani fled the country on Sunday and according to local media reports he was heading to Tajikistan.
The move effective means that government has ceded power to the Taliban, who reached Kabul to seal a nationwide military victory in just 10 days.
Ghani's departure from office was one of the key demands of the
Taliban during months of peace talks with the government had demanded Ghani to quit, but the president refused to leave office.
The Taliban raced closer to a complete military takeover of Afghanistan as fighters entered the outskirts of Kabul on Sunday.
Panicked workers fled government offices and helicopters began landing at the US Embassy in the Afghan capital after the insurgents took control of the key eastern city of Jalalabad, just hours after seizing the northern anti-Taliban bastion of Mazar-i-Sharif — extending an astonishing rout of government forces and warlord militias achieved in just 10 days.
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The loss of Mazar-i-Sharif and Jalalabad were huge back-to-back blows for Ghani and his government, Taliban further tightening its grip on the country.
According to media reports quoting Afghan government officials and eyewitnesses the Taliban on Sunday started entering Kabul from all sides.
VOA reported there is panic on the streets of Kabul as the news broke that the Taliban had entered the city. They are only on the outskirts, but government offices started getting evacuated.
In a nationwide offensive that has taken just over a week, the Taliban has defeated, co-opted or sent Afghan security forces fleeing from wide swathes of the country, even with some air support by the US military.
A US Chinook helicopter flies over the city of Kabul, Afghanistan, on Sunday. Rahmat Gul/AP
President Ashraf Ghani, who spoke to the nation Saturday for the first time since the offensive began, appears increasingly isolated as well. Warlords he negotiated with just days earlier have surrendered to the Taliban or fled, leaving Ghani without a military option. Ongoing negotiations in Qatar, the site of a Taliban office, also have failed to stop the insurgents' advance.
Thousands of civilians now live in parks and open spaces in Kabul itself, fearing the future. While Kabul appeared calm on Sunday, some ATMs stopped distributing cash as hundreds gathered in front of private banks, trying to withdraw their life savings.
Taliban fighters sit over a vehicle on a street in Laghman province on Sunday. AFP
Militants posted photos online early on Sunday showing them in the governor's office in Jalalabad, the capital of Nangarhar province.
Pro-Taliban social media accounts boasted that its fighters were moving rapidly through the outlying districts of Kabul province, with the outskirts of the city in close proximity.
"Don't panic! Kabul is safe!" tweeted Matin Bek, President Ashraf Ghani's chief of staff.
Ghani's government appeared to be left with few options as the Taliban effectively surrounded Kabul — either prepare for a bloody fight for the capital or capitulate.