Kabul: Former Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani, who fled the country yesterday is likely to head to the United States, said reports on Monday. Ghani is reportedly putting up in Oman after being denied landing in Tajikistan.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Tajikistan has also dismissed reports which claimed that Ghani arrived in the country. ” The plane with Ashraf Ghani has not entered the air space of Tajikistan and has not landed on the territory of the country,” the Foreign Ministry said.
According to the Tajik Foreign Ministry, Dushanbe (capital city of Tajikistan) received no requests on the matter from the Afghan side.
Earlier on Sunday, Ghani in a long Facebook post explained the reason behind his exit. The former president said he left the war-torn country to ‘avoid bloodshed’. Ghani said he was faced with a “hard choice” between the “armed Taliban” or “leaving the dear country that I dedicated my life to protecting the past 20 years”.
He added that the terrorist group had won a “trial of sword and guns”, but could not win the hearts of the Afghan people. “If left unchecked, countless patriots would be martyred and the city of Kabul would be devastated, resulting in a major humanitarian catastrophe in the six-million-strong city,” Ghani said.
After he fled, the Taliban declared the war in Afghanistan was over. In footage obtained by Al Jazeera, Taliban leaders were seen taking control of the presidential palace in Kabul.
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Meanwhile, chaos erupted at Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport after thousands of Afghans gathered there seeking an evacuation flight. The US military has taken over the security at the Kabul airport to execute the massive airlift of diplomat presence in Afghanistan following the Taliban’s takeover of the capital city.