When the Taliban rolled into Kabul a week in the past and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled, a further national leader appeared on video clip from inside the metropolis, assuring people today that he was going nowhere: the country’s former head of point out, Hamid Karzai.
Mr. Karzai—who led the initial Afghan governing administration after the Taliban had been ousted in 2001 and served as president right until 2014—stood along with his 3 youthful daughters, battling to make himself listened to around the din of U.S. helicopters evacuating People in america and questioned his fellow citizens not to panic.
“My loved ones, my women and I are right here with you,” the former president advised inhabitants of the capital. “I request of the safety forces and the Taliban that anywhere they are, they will search after the safety of the people today.”
The message wasn’t only supposed to instill tranquil. It was also component of a marketing campaign by Mr. Karzai that he says is aimed at avoiding combating and negotiating some type of electric power-sharing agreement concerning the Taliban and other Afghan political forces. For the earlier two decades, Mr. Karzai has sought to place himself at the centre of these efforts.
Very last Sunday, he explained he was forming a 3-particular person “coordination council” to safe a tranquil transfer of electric power along with Abdullah Abdullah, the head of the former Afghan government’s peace delegation, and the veteran Islamist warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.
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