08/15/2021 5:22 PM
Clarín.com
World
Updated 08/15/2021 5:22 PM
The Taliban entered Kabul on Sunday and
claimed "victory" from the government palace
, hours after Afghanistan's President
Ashraf Ghani
fled abroad in the dramatic epilogue of 20 years of foreign military intervention and a three-month insurgent blitzkrieg offensive.
"The Taliban won,"
Ghani declared on Facebook, assuring that he left the country to avoid a "bloodbath", since "countless patriots would have been martyred and Kabul destroyed" if he had stayed.
"Military units from the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan entered the city of Kabul to ensure security," insurgent spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid tweeted.
"
His progress continues normally," he
added.
At night, Afghan television broadcast images of Afghan fighters
inside the palace and crying out "victory."
An Afghan man rides a bicycle down a street in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan.
Photo Xinhua
"Our country has been liberated
and the mujahideen are victorious in Afghanistan," a militant told the Al Jazeera news channel from the presidential palace.
As previously reported by three senior Taliban officials to AFP,
a meeting was held in the palace
on the security situation in the capital.
People
As the day progressed,
panic seized the capital
.
Stores closed and huge traffic jams formed, and thousands of police and other members of the security forces left their posts and their uniforms.
In most of the banks you could
see a large agglomeration
, with people looking to withdraw their money while there was time.
Videos were posted on social media showing groups of heavily armed Taliban fighters
patrolling large cities
, holding white flags and greeting the population.
Afghan men ride bicycles down a street in Kabul.
Photo Xinhua
In the Taimani neighborhood, in the center of the capital, fear,
uncertainty and misunderstanding were visible on the faces of many.
"We take note of the return of the Taliban in Afghanistan
, and we hope that their arrival will bring peace and not a bloodbath. I remember, as a child, the atrocities committed by the Taliban," Tariq Nezami, a 30-year-old businessman, told AFP. .
Unstoppable advance
In 10 days
, the radical Islamist movement, which had started an offensive in May taking advantage of the start of the withdrawal of US and foreign troops, took control of almost the entire country.
Now, the insurgents are at the gates of power,
twenty years after being expelled
by a coalition led by Washington, following their refusal to hand over Osama bin Laden, leader of Al Qaida, after the attacks of September 11 in United States.
The defeat is total for both the government
and the Afghan security forces, which the United States
has been financing for twenty years with tens of billions of dollars.
Shops closed, in Kabul, capital of Afghanistan.
Photo Xinhua
Shortly before the announcement of the Taliban, former Vice President Abdullah Abdullah was the first to announce that Ghani
had "left" his country
, after seven years in power, without specifying where he had gone.
Ghani also did not specify where he is, but according to the Afghan channel Tolo News, he would be in
Tajikistan.
Ghani leaving office was one of the Taliban's key requests in peace talks with the Afghan government, although the president
had chosen to hold onto the post until now.
An insurgent spokesman, Suhail Shaheen, told the
BBC
that they hoped to have a peaceful handover of power "in the next few days."
The Taliban also promised that they were not seeking revenge on anyone, not even the military or officials who worked for the current government.
For his part, the Interior Minister, Abdul Sattar Mirzakwal, assured that
a "peaceful transfer of power"
to a transitional government would take place.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced that the evacuation of US diplomats and Afghan civilians who in the past cooperated with the United States and who may fear for their lives has already begun.
The operation involves some 30,000 people and 5,000 US troops were deployed to the Kabul airport for it.
The United States embassy, for its part, indicated that it had "information about shooting at the airport", although these could not be confirmed.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance was helping to ensure the security and operation of the airport, where Westerners and Afghans flow to flee the country.
US President Joe Biden
defended his decision
to end 20 years of war, the longest the United States has ever known.
"I am the fourth president to rule with an American military presence in Afghanistan ... I do not want and will not, broadcast this war to a fifth," he declared Sunday.
"This is not Saigon,
" US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told CNN, alluding to the fall of the Vietnamese capital in 1975, a still painful memory for the United States.
Faced with this situation, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson urged Westerners to adopt
"a common position"
against the Taliban "to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a fertile ground for terrorism again.
Strict Islam
The Taliban imposed a strict version of Islam
when they ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001.
Women could not work or go out
without being accompanied by a man, and young women and girls were prohibited from going to school.
Thieves had their hands cut off, murderers were publicly executed, and homosexuals were killed.
Today, they
try to give a more moderate image
and promised that if they returned to power they would respect human rights, especially those of women, albeit in accordance with "Islamic values."
Source: AFP
PB
Look also
Crisis in Afghanistan: insurgent groups entered the country's capital
Look also
The Taliban triumph in Afghanistan: the absence of a plan and years of miscalculations by the United States
Who are the Taliban and why they already control all of Afghanistan