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Pompeo calls Ghani ‘a total fraud’

Pompeo said that Ghani, and Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah “led cartels that stole millions of dollars in aid money from the United States.”…reports Asian Lite News

Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo alleged that Ashraf Ghani, the former Afghanistan President who fled the country when the Taliban seized power in Kabul, was “a total fraud” who solely focused on his own desire to stay in power, and a big hurdle in any peace talks, it was reported.

In his memoir titled “Never Give an Inch, Fighting for the America I Love”, Pompeo claims that both Mr. Ghani and Afghanistan’s former chief executive Abdullah Abdullah were involved in corruption at the highest levels that limited the U.S.’ ability to successfully exit the war-torn country in August 2021.

“As negotiations accelerated, Ghani was always a problem. I met scores of world leaders, and he was my least favourite. That’s saying a lot when you have Kim (Jong-un), Xi (Jinping), and (Vladimir) Putin in the mix. Yet Ghani was a total fraud who had wasted American lives and was focused solely on his own desire to stay in power,” Pompeo wrote.

Meanwhile, former Afghanistan Vice President Amrullah Saleh said that Afghanistan was not an obstacle to peace and that Pompeo’s book is full of lies.

“Government of Afghanistan was not an obstacle to peace. Pompeo’s book is full of lies. President Ghani has repeatedly said that he is willing to hold early elections according to the United Nations schedule and to protect values in the transfer of power. But the Taliban considered the elections as their destruction and still do,” Saleh tweeted from his official Twitter handle @AmrullahSaleh2 on Wednesday. Former United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday released his memoir titled “Never Give an Inch, Fighting for the America I Love”.

Pompeo said that Ghani, and Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah “led cartels that stole millions of dollars in aid money from the United States.”

He said that one of the main reasons for collapsing the entire political system was the high level of corruption and the “crooked system of patronage in the country.”

Pompeo added that in his opinion, “low-level corruption secured a measure of stability” and prevented the country from collapsing.

Saleh in response to Pompeo’s allegations said that elections and maintaining values had a price and America was not willing to pay the price. “I have nothing to say about their policy, but they should not make our nation look worthless. The biggest mistake of president Ghani is that he trusted the West. This is true,” Saleh wrote.

Saleh further added that Afghanistan paid a high price for trusting the West in its relations with the region.

According to the former vice president, Pakistanis and Qataris promised that the Taliban’s ignorance has decreased. This promise proved to be a lie. If America sees corruption as the reason for Afghanistan’s downfall, why is it not willing to publish the list of big contracts that it signed?

“When Qamar Bajwa (Pakistan’s former chief of army staff) came to Kabul through the mediation of England, I participated in three large and brief meetings. He said that the Taliban are afraid of the word election and people’s votes. The alternative way had patience, understanding, and unity of opinion, which the resourceful American propaganda apparatus had torn apart to make the ground for the shameful deal of Doha,” Saleh said in a tweet.

ALSO READ: Blinken affirms support for Egypt  

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Cash taken by Ghani while fleeing Kabul did not exceed $1 mn

SIGAR further added that former president Ashraf Ghani refused to be interviewed, and his attorney answered only six questions out of 56…reports Asian Lite News

The final report on the transfer of funds by former Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani while he was fleeing the country has been made public by the US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), media reports said.

As per the report, this number did not exceed $1 million and may have been closer in value to $500,000, Tolo News reported.

“Although SIGAR found that some cash was taken from the grounds of the palace and loaded onto President Ghani’s evacuation helicopters, evidence indicates that this number did not exceed $1 million and may have been closer in value to $500,000. Most of this money was believed to have come from several Afghan government operating budgets normally managed at the palace,” the report read, Tolo News reported.

SIGAR’s report said that a lot of money was left in government buildings, including those of the president and national security, and has disappeared.

“SIGAR also identified suspicious circumstances in which approximately $5 million in cash was accidentally left behind at the presidential palace. Some or all of this money likely belonged to President Ghani or the government of the United Arab Emirates. Some or all of it was also supposedly divided by members of the Presidential Protective Service after the helicopters departed but before the Taliban captured the palace,” the report read, Tolo News reported.

SIGAR further added that former president Ashraf Ghani refused to be interviewed, and his attorney answered only six questions out of 56.

“On March 14, 2022, SIGAR sent 56 written questions to President Ghani through his attorney concerning these theft allegations and other matters related to SIGAR’s congressionally mandated examination of the Afghan government’s collapse. On July 28, 2022, through his attorney, President Ghani provided answers to only six of those 56 questions,” according to the report.

SIGAR began its investigations after Ashraf Ghani was accused by the Russian Embassy of transferring millions of dollars as he fled Afghanistan.

ALSO READ-Top TTP commander killed in Afghanistan

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Ghani blames US, others for Taliban takeover

The former President fled Kabul as the Taliban entered the Afghan capital on August 15, 2021, and is now living in exile in the United Arab Emirates…reports Asian Lite News

Former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has broken his silence around a year after the collapse of his government to give an interview blaming the US, politicians in Kabul and others for the Taliban’s takeover of the war-torn country.

In his first televised interview with newly established media outlet Afghan Broadcasting Network (ABN) on Wednesday, Ghani specifically blamed former US envoy for Afghan peace Zalmay Khalilzad as well as a number of prominent Afghan politicians, reports dpa news agency.

Ghani seemed to be most angry at Khalilzad, who signed a peace deal with the Taliban in Doha that paved the way for the full withdrawal of foreign forces from the country.

He called Khalilzad “corrupt” and “incompetent”.

The former President fled Kabul as the Taliban entered the Afghan capital on August 15, 2021, and is now living in exile in the United Arab Emirates.

His departure paved the way for the Taliban to seize the presidential palace.

Ghani later apologised to Afghans, saying he fled to avoid bloodshed.

He has been heavily criticized nationally and internationally for escaping before a political settlement could be reached.

He still, however, considers himself Afghanistan’s President.

Before his government fell, Ghani had boasted he would stand against the Taliban until death.

He now says he had no executive power when Kabul collapsed.

Ghani told ABN he was the “last person to leave” and did so in order to avoid repeating “Dr Najib’s bitter experience”.

He was referring for former Afghan president Mohammad Najibullah, who was killed by the Taliban in 1996 when they first captured Kabul.

He said the country’s former defence minister fled before him and that the US embassy in Kabul had already started the evacuation of its staff and Afghan elite forces.

Ghani told ABN his intelligence chief said at the time the Afghan forces were incapable of fighting.

ALSO READ: Top TTP commander killed in Afghanistan

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Ghanaian President urges efforts to root out terrorism in West Africa

Ghanaian President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has urged member states of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to take concerted efforts to root out terrorism in West Africa…reports Asian Lite News

Akufo-Addo, also Chairman of the regional bloc, on Sunday made the call in his opening speech at the 61st Ordinary Session of the Authority of Heads of State and Government in Accra, the Ghanaian capital.

“Our region continues to be the target of indiscriminate and barbaric terrorist attacks, resulting in the massacre of many innocent victims and the deterioration of the humanitarian situation in the targeted countries,” said Akufo-Addo.

According to him, the terrorist attacks in West Africa are now not only focusing on the Sahel but also expanding to the coastal states in the subregion, Xinhua news agency reported.

He urged the subregion to continue to implement the regional action plan against terrorism and coordinate other related initiatives to defeat the threat of terror and insecurity in West Africa.

He added that the threats could only be quashed through concerted efforts and the collective resolve to combat the terrorists with a united front, urging the subregional bloc to be ready to go the extra mile to ensure the stability of the community and the various member states.

ALSO READ:Ghana has not recorded any Ebola case

“This will reinforce our collective response to this destabilising threat, and our determination in this end must be stronger than ever. Equally unshaken must be our resolve to maintain the stability of our region and its member states,” Akufo-Addo said.

The one-day summit, with ECOWAS heads of state and government in attendance, mainly focused on regional and global developments.

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Ghani no more a state head: UN

Afghanistan’s seat at the UN became a contested issue after the resignation of the former Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Afghanistan Ghulam Mohammad Ishaczai ….reports Asian Lite News

The names of former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and former Foreign Minister Mohammad Hanif Atmar have been removed from the UN Heads of State List.

Meanwhile, Naseer Ahmad Faiq has been named as Charge affairs of Afghanistan on the list of Permanent Representatives of States to the UN, reports TOLO News.

Afghanistan’s seat at the UN became a contested issue after the resignation of the former Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Afghanistan Ghulam Mohammad Ishaczai following the fall of Kabul in August 2021.

After Ishaczai’s resignation, Faiq was appointed as the Charge d’affaires. However, Afghanistan’s Permanent Mission to the UN issued a statement later saying that Mohammad Wali Naeemi, the Deputy Representative, has become Charge d’affaires instead of Faiq.

Atmar, calling himself the “Foreign Minister of the republic government”, reportedly wrote a letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, saying Naeemi will assume the leadership of the Permanent Mission as Charge d’affaires.

According to the letter, when Isaczai resigned, based on principle, Naeemi would have assumed the responsibility but since he was ill, Faiq was appointed instead.

The statement said that as Naeemi recovered, he became the Charge d’affaires and Faiq will continue working in his previous role.

Speaking to TOLO News on Tuesday, Faiq said Atmar’s letter to the UN was not accepted and Ghani’s and Atmar’s name have been removed from the UN system.

“Atmar’s letter and his attempt to introduce a new acting head of mission led the UN departments, including legal and political sections, to assess the letter. Then, it was decided that the former government was not official after its collapse on August 15 and that the letter was not considered. This also led to the removal of their names from the UN system,” Faiq said.

ALSO READ: Afghanistan reignites massive polio vaccine drive

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UK orders probe into Ghani’s sacking

PM Johnson had initially urged Ghani to file a formal complaint through the Conservative party. But she declined, arguing that the allegation centred on government rather than party work…reports Asian Lite News

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has ordered an inquiry into claims by a Muslim former minister that she was sacked from his government because of her faith, a spokesperson said Monday.

The claims by Nusrat Ghani, a former junior transport minister, have stoked fresh controversy for Downing Street as PM Johnson awaits the findings of a different inquiry into “partygate” revelations.

“The prime minister has asked the Cabinet Office to conduct an inquiry into the allegations made by Nusrat Ghani MP,” the spokesperson said.

PM Johnson had initially urged Ghani to file a formal complaint through the Conservative party. But she declined, arguing that the allegation centred on government rather than party work.

“The prime minister has now asked officials to establish the facts about what happened,” the spokesperson said, adding that Johnson “takes these claims very seriously”.

Ghani welcomed the new probe, which was announced after she held talks with Johnson on Sunday evening.

“As I said to the prime minister last night, all I want is for this to be taken seriously and for him to investigate,” she tweeted.

The inquiry must look into what she was told both by Downing Street aides and by a Conservative whip in parliament, the Tory MP added.

Ghani, 49, was sacked as a transport minister in 2020, and told the Sunday Times that a whip said her “Muslimness was raised as an issue” at one meeting in Downing Street.

She was also told her “Muslim woman minister status was making colleagues feel uncomfortable”, she claimed.

Chief whip Mark Spencer, whose role is to keep MPs on board with the government’s agenda, took the unusual step of identifying himself as the person at the centre of the claims, and strongly denied the allegations.

The government whips were already in the spotlight after they were accused by another Tory MP of “blackmailing” backbench critics of Johnson over the partygate affair.

Several Conservatives have called for the prime minister to quit after revelations that his staff had held frequent parties in Downing Street during Covid-19 lockdowns.

PM Johnson attended at least one of the gatherings, but denies breaking the law, and has commissioned senior civil servant Sue Gray to investigate.

Gray’s report could come out this week, according to reports.

In a newspaper column in 2018, Johnson sparked widespread criticism by writing that Muslim women wearing the burqa looked like “letter boxes” and a “bank robber”.

ALSO READ-UK withdrawing some embassy staff from Kyiv

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Ghani runner-up in most corrupt list

Erdogan has overseen a corrupt government that laundered Chinese funds for Iranian oil using state-owned banks, it said…reports Sanjeev Sharma

Former Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani is runner-up for the annual Person of the Year award for Corruption in 2021.

Belarusian President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko has been named 2021’s Person of the Year by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) in recognition of all he has done to advance organised criminal activity and corruption, a statement said.

“Ghani certainly deserves an award, too. He was breathtaking in both corruption and gross incompetence. He deserted his people, leaving them to misery and death so he could live among the corrupt former state officials in the moral cesspool that is the UAE,” said OCCRP.

“It was a banner year for corruption, but Lukashenko stood out from the crowd,” said Drew Sullivan, a co-founder of OCCRP who served as a judge on the panel.

Erdogan Struggles To Shore Up Lira

The other finalists include Syrian dictator Bashar Hafez al-Assad, Turkish President Recip Tayyip Erdogan, and Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz.

Assad led Syria into a destructive civil war and has stolen hundreds of millions of dollars while clinging to power, as per OCCRP.

Erdogan has overseen a corrupt government that laundered Chinese funds for Iranian oil using state-owned banks, it said.

Kurz was the leader of Austrian People’s Party (OVP), who, along with nine other politicians and newspaper persons, was accused of embezzlement and bribery.

Kurz

OCCRP said Lukashenko enjoys unlimited power at home and sniffs at international opprobrium. Indeed, it was EU sanctions against his country that prompted his retaliation via refugees, it said.

He seems equally unbothered by the suffering of his own citizens and desperate migrants, including children, shivering, hungry and barred from settling in Belarus, the statement said.

Over the past year, Lukashenko has generated headlines for channeling state money to a series of oligarchs close to the Lukashenko family, intercepting a Ryanair passenger plane carrying a Belarusian dissident and forcing it to land in Minsk, in violation of international laws on aviation, manufacturing a border crisis with the European Union by luring thousands of refugees to the borders of the bloc and promulgating misinformation and fake cures for Covid, OCCRP said.

ALSO READ-Taliban ban Afghan women anchors

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Ghani pledged to fight but fled when the time came: Blinken

This government would have been “led by the Taliban but (would have) included all aspects of the Afghan society”, he said…reports Asian Lite News.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani promised to fight till death but fled Kabul when the Taliban came and captured the capital city, Dawn reported.

In a recent CBS News interview, Blinken was asked if he had personally tried to persuade Ghani to stay in Kabul.

The Secretary of State said he was on the phone with Ghani on Saturday (August 14) night, pressing him to accept a plan for transferring power to a new government in Kabul.

This government would have been “led by the Taliban but (would have) included all aspects of the Afghan society”, he said.

Ghani told him that “he was prepared to do that, but if the Taliban wouldn’t go along, he was ready to fight to the death”, Blinken said. “And the very next day, he fled Afghanistan.”

The Taliban captured Kabul on August 15 as Ghani flew out of Afghanistan.

“So, I was engaged with President Ghani over many weeks, many months,” Blinken added.

Asked if he did everything he could, the top US diplomat said the State Department was reviewing everything that Washington did, starting from 2020 when former President Donald Trump’s administration made an agreement with the Taliban for withdrawing American troops from Afghanistan.

The review would include “the actions we took during our administration, because we have to learn every possible lesson from the last couple of years” and also from the last 20 years, he said.

ALSO READ-China shifts stance – now wants UN to steer Afghanistan

READ MORE-After China promised aid, only $1 million reaches Afghanistan

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US govt urged to bring Ghani to justice over embezzlement allegation

The US lawmakers say corrupt foreign government officials cannot be permitted to personally enrich themselves with American money destined to safeguard the Afghan people….reports Sanjeev Sharma

Afghanistan’s exiled President Ashraf Ghani must be brought to justice and face criminal charges of embezzlement if he indeed fled the besieged country with duffle bags full of cash intended for the Afghan people, according to House Oversight Committee Republicans of the US.

Ghani hastily abandoned Afghanistan earlier this month as the Taliban marched to power. He turned up in the United Arab Emirates, which accepted the president on humanitarian grounds.

Fox News reported House Republicans are raising alarms over news reports that Ghani left Afghanistan with “duffle bags full of cash totaling $169 million.”

In a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, the lawmakers cite reports that “Ghani in fact had so much looted money with him when he fled Afghanistan that not all of it would fit in his helicopter and that he was forced to leave money lying on the tarmac.”

Rep James Comer, the top Republican on the Oversight Committee, and Rep Glenn Grothman, R-Wis, sent letters Tuesday to both Garland and Secretary of State Antony Blinken asking for a briefing no later than Aug 31 on whether Ghani is in possession of US taxpayer dollars and whether the US government is seeking criminal charges against him, Fox News reported.

“If true, this was not the dignified exit of a benevolent head of state, but that of a coward and grifter,” the lawmakers wrote to Blinken in a letter first obtained by Fox News. “The United States must do everything in its power to seize any illicitly gained funds that were corruptly embezzled by President Ghani. If he diverted funds from their intended purposes, the US should bring him to justice.”

The lawmakers say corrupt foreign government officials cannot be permitted to personally enrich themselves with American money destined to safeguard the Afghan people.

“This is particularly the case where President Ghani’s reckless and cowardly actions likely contributed to the speed with which the Taliban took over the country and toppled the Afghan government,” they wrote.

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AFGHAN GENERAL: ‘Betrayed By Ghani & Biden’

GENERAL SAMI DADAT: This was not an Afghan war only; it was an international war, with many militaries involved. It would have been impossible for one army alone, ours, to take up the job and fight. This was a military defeat, but it emanated from political failure

We were betrayed by President Ghani and President Biden and their team. In an exclusive article in The New York Times, General Sami Sadat, former Commander of the Afghan Army, says the debacle at Afghanistan is not a military defeat, but “it emanated from political failure”

A former commander of the Afghan Army blames President Ashraf Ghani and his close aides for deserting the country without an interim agreement for a transition period with the Taliban.

General Sami Sadat, former commander of the Afghan National Army’s 215 Maiwand Corps, is also accusing President John Biden and his team for not providing logistical support to fight against Taliban.

General Sadat, a Sandhurst graduate served as a senior director in Afghanistan’s national intelligence agency. He is accusing both President Biden and President Ghani for letting the Team down.

 “There is an enormous sense of betrayal here,” General Sadat wrote in the Times article. “Mr. Ghani’s hasty escape ended efforts to negotiate an interim agreement for a transition period with the Taliban that would have enabled us to hold the city and help manage evacuations. Instead, chaos ensued — resulting in the desperate scenes witnessed at the Kabul airport.

“For the past three and a half months, I fought day and night, nonstop, in southern Afghanistan’s Helmand Province against an escalating and bloody Taliban offensive. Coming under frequent attack, we held the Taliban back and inflicted heavy casualties. Then I was called to Kabul to command Afghanistan’s special forces. But the Taliban already were entering the city; it was too late.

“I am exhausted. I am frustrated. And I am angry. President Biden said last week that “American troops cannot and should not be fighting in a war and dying in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves.”

“It’s true that the Afghan Army lost its will to fight. But that’s because of the growing sense of abandonment by our American partners and the disrespect and disloyalty reflected in Mr. Biden’s tone and words over the past few months. The Afghan Army is not without blame. It had its problems — cronyism, bureaucracy — but we ultimately stopped fighting because our partners already had.

“It pains me to see Mr. Biden and Western officials are blaming the Afghan Army for collapsing without mentioning the underlying reasons that happened. Political divisions in Kabul and Washington strangled the army and limited our ability to do our jobs. Losing combat logistical support that the United States had provided for years crippled us, as did a lack of clear guidance from U.S. and Afghan leadership.

“I am a three-star general in the Afghan Army. For 11 months, as commander of 215 Maiwand Corps, I led 15,000 men in combat operations against the Taliban in southwestern Afghanistan. I’ve lost hundreds of officers and soldiers. That’s why, as exhausted and frustrated as I am, I wanted to offer a practical perspective and defend the honor of the Afghan Army. I’m not here to absolve the Afghan Army of mistakes. But the fact is, many of us fought valiantly and honorably, only to be let down by American and Afghan leadership.”

General Sadat says three major factors affected the collapse of Afghan Army.  He wrote: “First, former President Donald Trump’s February 2020 peace deal with the Taliban in Doha doomed us. It put an expiration date on American interest in the region. Second, we lost contractor logistics and maintenance support critical to our combat operations. Third, the corruption endemic in Mr. Ghani’s government that flowed to senior military leadership and long crippled our forces on the ground irreparably hobbled us.”

The Doha Peace Agreement was signed last year in February. The agreement signed by the US–under the Donald Trump regime — and Taliban got the support of China, Pakistan and Russia. Under the agreement, the US and NATO forces committed to pulling out of Afghanistan.

Several experts also said that the exit of the US from Afghanistan will allow Washington to focus more on China. “The US is withdrawing from Afghanistan because it wants to concentrate its resources against China,” Satoru Nagao, fellow at Hudson Institute, told India Narrative.

Irrespective of the course that the US charters once it closes the Afghanistan chapter, it will have to seriously look at rebuilding its credibility as a world power.

The Credibility Factor

Meanwhile, Delhi-based  Observer Research Foundation (ORF) said that across the world there are worries about the reliability and credibility of the US as a guarantor of security.

“It would be foolhardy to take American credibility on external commitments as a given. While there are fewer doubts about US commitments to Europe and the NATO, the looser arrangements in the Indo-Pacific leave open many questions,” the ORF paper stated.

Many have also opined that this is a “Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh) moment” for the US.

Gerald Ford, then US President announced in April 1975 that for Washington, the Vietnam war, which it was spearheading was “finished.”

According to Al Jazeera, “the president’s words landed like shells of cold indifference on the ears of the South Vietnamese who had been promised support by successive US administrations, including Ford’s.” Following the US withdrawal, Saigon fell and the Communists assumed power.

Though US President Joe Biden has made it clear that he has no regrets in withdrawing from Afghanistan as “the objectives of the war have been met,” “the goals of wiping out terrorism, nation building, political stability and peace stand like a ruin in the face of the empire,” the news organisation said.

While many eyebrows have raised over India’s US policy, Shakti Sinha, Hony Director, AB Vajpayee Institute of Policy Research and International Studies told India Narrative that the move should not come as a surprise to the world.

“The US has been talking about pulling out its troops, the world including India should have been prepared for this though from a humanitarian point it is an extremely sad episode.” Sinha, who served as head of the governance and development section of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan between 2006 and 2008, said.

READ MORE: Karzai, Abdullah in Taliban’s 12-member council

READ MORE: US lawmakers urge Biden to extend August 31 withdrawal deadline