The Afghan government on Thursday rejected claims by former president Hamid Karzai that insurgent groups, especially Daesh, are being bolstered by the presence of foreign forces in Afghanistan.
The CEO’s Office said any doubt or suspicion in the fight against Daesh “is not correct” and that all insurgent groups have been and are still being targeted in the fight against terror by the Afghan government, the United States and NATO.
Speaking at the 7th Moscow Conference on International Security on Wednesday, Karzai said: “The underlying strategic assumption was that the US and its allies would be able to handle the problem and succeed and that they were sincere in their mission. That hope has been dashed to the ground.”
He said: “Seventeen years on, Afghanistan is neither peaceful nor safe. More terrorist groups have sprung up with clear signs that organized support is nurturing there. Otherwise, Daesh would have not emerged in our country. It has been noted that this group, Daesh, has been supplied and strengthened during the full-scale military and intelligence presence of the United States and NATO in the name of the war on terrorism in my country Afghanistan.”
However, the CEO’s spokesman Jawed Faisal dismissed these claims and said: “We have fought against all (insurgent) groups including Daesh, Taliban and Haqqani (network). We eliminated Daesh’s leadership in Afghanistan, we cleared the areas in which they (Daesh fighters) were operating.”
Senior military officials from countries in the region, including Pakistan and Iran, attended the Moscow Conference.
“Mr Karzai has a cold relation with the United States; therefore, at every ceremony, he tries to talk in a way to show that Americans are oppressing Afghanistan and that they are betraying the people of Afghanistan,” Ghulam Farooq Majroh, an MP, told TOLOnews.
This is not the first time that the former president has criticized the US’s mission in Afghanistan.
On numerous occasions, after ending his tenure as president, he has referred to the ongoing presence of the US in the country – at both national and international events.