President Ashraf Ghani flees as Taliban move on Kabul

KABUL (AP):

Afghanistan’s embattled president left the country on Sunday, joining his fellow citizens and foreigners in a stampede fleeing the advancing Taliban and signalling the end of a 20-year Western experiment aimed at remaking Afghanistan.

The Taliban, who for hours had been on the outskirts of Kabul, announced soon after they would move further into a city gripped by panic, where helicopters raced overhead throughout the day to evacuate personnel from the US Embassy. Smoke rose near the compound as staff destroyed important documents, and the American flag was lowered. Several other Western missions also prepared to pull their people out.

Afghans, fearing that the Taliban could reimpose the kind of brutal rule that all but eliminated women’s rights, rushed to leave the country as well, lining up at cash machines to withdraw their life savings. The desperately poor – who had left homes in the countryside for the presumed safety of the capital – remained in their thousands in parks and open spaces throughout the city.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken rejected comparisons to the US pullout from Vietnam, as many watched in disbelief at the sight of helicopters landing in the embassy compound to take diplomats to a new outpost at Kabul International Airport.

“This is manifestly not Saigon,” he said on ABC’s ‘This Week’.

The American ambassador was among those evacuated, said officials, who spoke condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to discuss ongoing military operations. He was asking to return to the embassy, but it was not clear if he would be allowed to.

President Ashraf Ghani flew out of the country, two officials told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorised to brief journalists. Abdullah Abdullah, the head of the Afghan National Reconciliation Council, later confirmed that Ghani had left.