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The Afghanistan government led by President Ashraf Ghani has almost collapsed as Taliban insurgents have taken over the presidential palace in Kabul – a move that would have ramifications across the borders of Afghanistan.
The insurgents took over the presidential palace, known as Arg in the local Pashto language, after Mr Ghani fled out of the country. Mr Ghani’s whereabouts are not yet known, but the local media reports suggested that he had fled to Tajikistan.
In his first statement after fleeing the country, Mr Ghani, who has been criticised by his detractors for this, confessed the defeat. “The Taliban have won with the judgement of their swords and guns, and are now responsible for the honour, property and self-preservation of their countrymen,” Mr Ghani said in a statement posted to Facebook.
He said that he fled the country to avoid any kind of bloodshed. "They are now facing a new historical test. Either they will preserve the name and honour of Afghanistan, or they will give priority to other places and networks," he added.
The videos of Taliban inside the presidential palace have since gone viral on social media.
In a blitzkrieg, the Taliban has made sweeping battlefield gains, with now nearly the entirety of the nation under their control after US President Joe Biden’s April decision to withdraw the American troops from Afghanistan by 31 August 2021.
Since the move, the insurgent group moved fast across the country, and has seized control of all the entry points to the landlocked country while Afghan forces continued to surrender to the fundamentalist armed insurgents.
Many see the American withdrawal from Afghanistan as yet another Vietnam episode – where the US had withdrawn after fighting a 20-year-old unwinnable war in 1975.
In case of Afghanistan, the US landed its troops in the South Asian country in 2001, after 9/11 terror attacks to flush out Taliban – a fundamentalist group that the US, in cahoots with Pakistan’s spy agency, had helped create in 1980s to take on its cold war rival – Russia. At the time of launching attack in 2001, Taliban was in control of Afghanistan, and the US alleged that Taliban was harbouring terror group Al-Qaida – the perpetrators of the Pentagon Terror Attack.
The development in Afghanistan is unlikely to have any major impact on global stock markets, given the fact that the size of Afghan economy in the larger scheme of things is miniscule. However, the move may have ramifications across the border in a usually volatile South Asian region.
