“Afghanistan wasn’t packed and put in the bag of the last US soldier”, former Vice-President Amrullah Saleh said in a tweet on Tuesday, 31 August, after the United States announced the completion of withdrawal of its forces from the country, while leaving the war-torn nation in the clutches of the Taliban.
Saleh had announced on 17 August, that he is Afghanistan’s "legitimate caretaker President", as he, along with Ahmad Massoud lead the National Resistance Front (NRF) against the Taliban.
“The country is here. The rivers are flowing and the mountains are majestic. Talibs are an unpopular proxy force and hated, that is why the whole country wants to escape from them”, Saleh said in his tweet and further criticised the United States for withdrawing their troops from the country, saying, “A super power decided to be mini power, that is OK.”
Meanwhile, celebratory gunshots were fired into the air in Kabul by the Taliban as the US military completed its withdrawal from the war-torn nation.
The US Department of Defense announced the departure of the “last soldier” in a tweet saying, “The last American soldier to leave Afghanistan: Maj Gen Chris Donahue…ending the US mission in Kabul."
Former Vice-President Saleh, who is one of the fiercest opponents of the Taliban, was once the head of the Afghan intelligence and security apparatus and has also been the target of countless assassination attempts.
When Kabul fell on 15 August, unlike former president Ashraf Ghani who left the country, Saleh joined Massoud in the Panjshir Valley to continue his resistance.
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)