Karzai accuses US of collusion with Daesh in Afghanistan

KABUL: Former Afghan president Hamid Karzai has accused the US of collaborating with the Islamic State (IS) in Afghanistan.

In an interview with a news channel, Karzai alleged that IS had been allowed to gain a foothold in the country with US approval. “In my view under the full presence surveillance, military, political intelligence, Daesh (IS) has emerged,” he said, referring to the group with its Arabic name. “And for two years the Afghan people came cried loud about their suffering of violations. Nothing was done,” he alleged.

Referring to the decision by the Trump administration to drop the mother of all bombs on Afghanistan in April, 2017, he said that the very next day Daesh took the next district in Afghanistan. “That proves to us that there is a hand in it and that hand can be no one else but them (the US) in Afghanistan,” he stated. 

The United States dropped the massive GBU 43 bomb (also known as the mother of all bombs) in eastern Afghanistan. It was the first time the US used this size of bomb in a conflict. Karzai had criticised the bombing as inhuman and most brutal misuse of Afghanistan as testing ground for new and dangerous weapons. 

Karzai also approved of the recent decision by the International Criminal Court (ICC) chief prosecutor to investigate war crimes committed in Afghanistan. “She’s right to launch such an investigation,” Karzai said, acknowledging that such crimes may have occurred on his watch. “Definitely, there were violations by the Afghan security forces, by the US, and by others,” he said.

The former president was open to having his own complicity investigated and stated that he would help the ICC investigation. 

“I have been asking for this so that they come to Afghanistan and investigate as to what has happened in this country,” Karzai said. He also criticised Western organisations which he claimed were complicit in covering up US crimes.