Afghanistan’s acting President Amrullah Saleh criticized Pakistan for colluding with the Taliban to take over the country and sponsoring terrorism and insurgency, which toppled the government and thousands of displaced Afghans fled to safer areas.
In an exclusive interview, Saleh accused Pakistan of being in “service” to the Taliban. “It is very clear that the Taliban were never under pressure; they used Pakistan as their support base. Not the sanctuary, the whole of Pakistan was in the service of the Taliban,” he said.
Saleh said that US efforts to “buy” Pakistan’s cooperation had yielded no results because “the more they paid, the more it encouraged the Pakistanis to provide more services and assistance to the Taliban, hence a nuclear The issue of state sponsoring terrorism and extremism. Allies in Afghanistan were never addressed”.
This is not the first time that an Afghan leader has attacked Pakistan. Earlier, in a tweet, Saleh said that Afghanistan is “too big for Pakistan to swallow and too big for Taliban rule”. “Don’t let your history become a chapter of humiliation and bowing down to terrorist groups,” he wrote.
Amrullah Saleh, a native of the Panjshir Valley, a follower of Ahmed Shah Masood, was a member of the Northern Coalition, which was formed when the Taliban came to power in 1996. He received his military training in Pakistan and was commissioned by Masood in 1997. As the liaison officer for the Northern Alliance at the Afghan Embassy in Tajikistan.
After toppling the Taliban regime, Amrullah Saleh became the head of the National Directorate of Security in 2004, when Hamid Karzai was president. He then served as the Interior Minister of the Ashraf Ghani presidency and later became the first vice president. The Afghan Embassy in Tajikistan has put up a picture of him as the acting chief.
Afghanistan has repeatedly accused Pakistan of shielding and providing resources to the Taliban. The Pakistan ISI’s heavy participation in the discussions between the Taliban and the Pakistan government was also confirmed as exclusive photos accessed by CNN-News18 showed ISI chief Hameed Faiz meeting top Taliban leaders in Kandahar.
A US government report, citing Defense Intelligence Agency inputs, said that Pakistan’s strategic security objectives in Afghanistan are almost certainly countering Indian influence and reducing the Afghan civil war to Pakistani territory. “Pakistan continues to support peace talks while maintaining ties with the Afghan Taliban,” the Office of the Inspector General of the US State Department said.
The quarterly report from April 1 to June 30 said the Pakistani government was concerned that the civil war in Afghanistan would have destabilizing effects on Pakistan, including an influx of refugees and providing a potential safe haven for anti-Pakistan terrorists.
According to media reports quoting eyewitnesses, during the quarter, financial contributions to the Afghan Taliban in the border areas of Pakistan increased. It added that solicitation efforts traditionally targeted mosques, but Afghan Taliban militants now openly visit market areas in nearby Pakistani cities. “Terrorists usually demand contributions of USD 50 or more from shopkeepers. Local residents told reporters that solicitation efforts have now become common in towns and cities of Quetta, Kuchlak Bypass, Pashtun Abad, Ishaq Abad and Farooqiya.