Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has taken to social media to confirm his departure from Kabul, saying that numerous countrymen would have been martyred and the city destroyed if he had stayed.
“I was faced with a difficult choice today: wait to face armed Taliban entering the Presidential Palace or exit the country,” Ghani wrote in a statement posted to Facebook.
“I chose to exit so I could prevent this bloodshed.”
He said the Taliban had achieved their success by using armed force and were now responsible for protecting the lives, property and honour of citizens, noting that “a lot of people and groups are afraid and uncertain of the future.”
He reportedly fled with his wife, his chief of staff and his national security advisor to Tashkent.
with Reuters
