President Ghani Poised to Step Down After Taliban Surround Kabul, Demanding Surrender

Islamists announce amnesty for those who worked for foreign forces, US, UK, Canadian troops trying to extricate nationals and staff

[Islamabad] Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani will step down in the next few hours, a well-placed source in Kabul told The Media Line on Sunday afternoon.

Another source revealed that a high-level Taliban delegation, led by Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, has arrived at Kabul’s presidential palace.

Abdul Sattar Mirzakwal, the acting Afghan interior minister, said in a statement that Kabul would not be attacked and that the transition would happen peacefully. He assured Kabul residents that security forces would ensure the security of the city.

This follows the news Sunday morning that, after quickly seizing all other key cities, the Afghan Taliban entered the outskirts of the capital Kabul and demanded the government’s surrender.

Taliban negotiators were headed to the presidential palace to prepare for a “peaceful transfer of power,” Afghan officials said.

About 3,000 Afghan soldiers at Bagram Air Base, located north of Kabul, surrendered to the Islamists earlier in the day and the Taliban released 5,000 detainees who were being held at the base.

In its latest conquest on Sunday morning, the Taliban took control of the strategic city of Jalalabad. The fifth-largest city in Afghanistan, Jalalabad is the capital of Nangarhar Province and is located 82 miles east of Kabul and 74 miles west of the Pakistani city of Peshawar.

“Jalalabad was captured without any resistance,” Tariq Ghazniwal, a writer for the Taliban’s Alemarah news service, told The Media Line.

Zia-ul-Haq Amarkhel, the governor of Nangarhar Province, peacefully handed over the province to Taliban commander Mullah Nida Muhammed, Ghazniwal said.

On Saturday night, the Taliban entered the Chahar-Asyab district, just seven miles from the capital. Heavy clashes between Taliban fighters and government forces were reported.

Earlier, Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan’s northern doorway to Central Asia, fell to the Islamist advance.

Mazar-i-Sharif is the capital of Balkh Province and the country’s fourth-largest city. It was the government’s last bastion in the north and was defended by Afghan special forces along with two powerful warlords, Abdul Rashid Dostum, a leader of the Uzbek community, and Atta Muhammad Nur, an ethnic Tajik. Reportedly, both fled with their fighters.

“The Taliban have taken control of the city without any resistance. Government forces were given safe passage after disarmament by Taliban fighters,” Tayyeb Balkhi, a Mazar-i-Sharif-based journalist, told The Media Line.

The Taliban now have complete control of the major routes to the Central Asian republics.

Nadir Subhan, a Kabul-based freelance journalist, told The Media Line that “after the fall of Kunar [Province in the northeast] and the central Daykundi Province, the Taliban is inching closer to the federal capital.

“US officials are asking the Taliban to delay the assault on Kabul so Americans can be evacuated from the country,” he claimed.

“Airstrikes are reported on the outskirts of Kabul. The city is under a complete blackout,” Subhan said.

Also on Saturday, after a rapid offensive, the Taliban captured the city of Pul-i-Alam, the capital of Logar Province and just 43 miles from Kabul.

Logar is the hometown of President Ghani.

Afghan media reported on Saturday that “the hubs of Logar, Paktika, Kunar and Paktia provinces and 10 districts fell to the Taliban in the last 24 hours.”

On Thursday, after heavy clashes, the Taliban captured the country’s second-largest city, Kandahar, and took complete control of the third-largest and strategic city of Herat on Friday.

Rohullah Ahmadzai, Defense Ministry spokesperson, said on Saturday, “Afghanistan’s security and defense forces will defend and protect the gains the country made over the past 20 years.”

Earlier in the day, President Ghani addressed the nation in a prerecorded televised speech. “Afghanistan is in serious danger of instability,” he said, adding that he would not allow the “imposed war” to hurt the people anymore.

Suhail Shaheen, a Taliban political spokesperson based in Doha, Qatar, told The Media Line, “We have announced an amnesty for all of those Afghan nationals who previously worked and helped the invaders, and for all those who are now standing in the ranks of the dishonest Kabul administration.

“Our doors are open to all such fellow countrymen. We invite all of them to come and serve the nation with honor and dignity,” he said.

“It is against our ideology to recognize a government which is imposed by foreign forces,” Shaheen said.

Upon the seizure of Herat city on Friday, the Taliban captured Afghan Deputy Interior Minister Abdul Rehman, Herat Province Governor Brig. Gen. Abdul Saboor and former warlord and governor Ismail Khan.

Khan was one of the country’s most prominent militia commanders, known as the Lion of Herat. He battled the Soviet invasion and was a leading member of the US-backed Northern Alliance.

The Taliban allowed Khan to travel to Kabul by helicopter.

In July, he mobilized hundreds of his followers in Herat to fight the Taliban.

The Taliban have seized at least two-thirds of Afghanistan, including 25 of the country’s 34 provincial capitals, as US, UK and Canadian troops make efforts to secure an organized withdrawal.

US President Joe Biden on Saturday said, “The number of fresh troops sent to Afghanistan has been increased from 3,000 to 5,000.” The troops are to assist a safe exit of US embassy staff and personnel from Kabul.

Pentagon press secretary John F. Kirby told reporters on Friday, “This is a specific, narrowly focused, tailored mission to help with the safe, secure movement of the reduction of civilian personnel in Kabul, as well as to help support the acceleration of the special immigrant visa process by the State Department.”

Abdul Basit, a former Pakistani high commissioner to India and ambassador to Germany, told The Media Line, “The US is keeping its cards close to its chest apropos Afghanistan.

“In Pakistan, we are increasingly concerned that the US is more interested in keeping Afghanistan in turmoil and this region as a whole unstable in the context of its growing rivalry with China,” he continued.

“However, China considers the rushed US withdrawal from Afghanistan as irresponsible and holds the US accountable for the current complications in a war-torn Afghanistan,” Basit added.

“The US signed a peace agreement in Doha with the Taliban [in February 2020], almost recognizing the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan in waiting,” he said.

“The US policy about Afghanistan remains stalled in paradoxes,” Basit said.

Maj. Gen. (ret.) Javed Aslam Tahir, a defense analyst based in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, told The Media Line, “After 9/11, the main logical objectives for the US-led invasion in Afghanistan were elimination of terrorists and bringing peace and progress in Afghanistan and the region as well, but unfortunately, none of the objectives has been achieved by the allied forces.

“An autopsy analysis of the entire US-led war shows that despite having the world’s best spy services and state of the art technology, the US and allies completely failed to understand” the “situation on Afghan soil,” Tahir continued.

“Instead of wasting dollars on killing, they [the US and allies] should invest in human resource development, infrastructure, technology and pushing the lives of the Afghan people into a better comfort zone,” he said.

”Such a strategy would disarm the fighting spirit and make progress on peace and acceptance of the foreign powers,” Tahir said.

Irina Tsukerman, a New York-based national security expert, told The Media Line, “After the US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, the current situation is largely seen, across party lines, as a foreign policy failure by the US.

“It is clear that the Taliban has colluded with various interests to force the US out as quickly as possible, but it is also apparent that Biden at the very least allowed it to happen or quite possibly had agreed to a sudden withdrawal,” she said. “It is very clear that the troops sent to secure the US embassy exit are not there to defend Kabul.”

Michael Kugelman, senior associate for South Asia at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington and a prominent Afghan expert, told The Media Line, “Right now, Afghans are caught between a collapsing government running on fumes, a military that has effectively surrendered, and a US partner that’s running for the exits. What an unholy mess.

“The international community should prioritize the security of its diplomats. But let’s be clear: Its departure from Afghanistan would send a sobering signal that the world is resigned to leaving Afghans to their fate,” Kugelman said.