KABUL — Amrullah Saleh, the first Vice President of the former Afghan government and the self-proclaimed acting President, believes that the rule of the Taliban government will not last long in the country.
Taliban entered the presidential palace in Kabul and overthrew the democratically elected government after President Ashraf Ghani left Afghanistan on Aug. 15.
“The law of the Taliban is Islamic Emirate, unacceptable to the people of Afghanistan, and the election of a leader by a group is unacceptable,” he said.
“It is impossible for Taliban rule to last long in Afghanistan.”
Saleh said that the Taliban have “neither external nor internal legitimacy,” and they will soon face a “deep military crisis,” with other areas besides Panjshir mounting resistance against them.
He said that the peace negotiations between Kabul and the Taliban became “the beginning of the end” for the country.
Saleh said that the European Union “must assume its moral responsibility and support for the Afghan National Resistance, politically and morally.”
For a long time, fighters in Panjshir have prevented the capture of the region from Taliban terrorists by firing a heavy machine gun into a deep valley from the top of the rocky mountain.
These fighters are from the National Resistance Front (NRF), the remaining most vital force after the siege of Kabul by the Taliban.
Ahmad Massoud, the son of famous Afghan commander Ahmad Shah Massoud and Saleh, is trying to challenge the Taliban.
When asked by Euronews why he did not leave Afghanistan even after the Taliban takeover, he said, “I am a soldier of Ahmad Shah Massoud and, in his dictionary, there was no such thing as fleeing, exile and leaving the nation in bad moments. If I had escaped, I might have been physically alive, but as soon as I reached any corner of the globe, I would have died instantly.”
Ahmad Shah Massoud, considered Sher-e-Panjshir, garnered a fearsome reputation in its fight against the Taliban in the 1990s. He also led the Northern Alliance group that helped Americans in its “war against terror.”
Saleh considers him his idol, posthumously named a national hero by former president Hamid Karzai.
“I am not a perfect human being,” said Saleh to the local media when asked about the decision to release thousands of prisoners by the Afghan government that bolstered the Taliban forces.
“But in my position as vice-president, I could not veto that decision. Unfortunately, the Americans asked us in a very wrong and undiplomatic way to release these prisoners and threatened to cut off economic, weapons, and military aid to Afghanistan. We made it clear that if we let go of these prisoners, they would go back to fight us.”
He also accused Pakistan of giving orders to the Taliban, which he called a “proxy group” for the country.
Saleh said that the US and North Atlantic Treaty Organization should have kept 2,500 soldiers in Afghanistan.
“But now that they did not, and they are paying the price,” he said.
“The intra-Afghan dialogue was flawed from the very beginning as the Taliban never believed in a political solution to the decades-long conflict.”
Saleh further called for the international recognition of the resistance pocket in Panjshir and for providing him with moral and political support.
For a long time, fighters in Panjshir have prevented the capture of the region from Taliban terrorists by firing a heavy machine gun into a deep valley from the top of the rocky mountain.
These fighters are from the National Resistance Front (NRF), the remaining strongest force after the siege of Kabul by the Taliban.
The valley lies in the Hindu Kush mountains, approximately 90 miles north of Kabul. The Taliban have been unable to take this significant holdout of resistance after steamrolling across pro-government troops in a matter of months.
(With inputs from ANI)
Edited by Saptak Datta and Ritaban Misra
The post Taliban Rule Would Not Last Long In Afghanistan: Acting President appeared first on Zenger News.
