Former Afghan president gives reason for fleeing, says he wants to return and ‘help my country heal’

Former Afghan president Ashraf Ghani said in May 2021 that he would never leave his country. In a CNN interview he discussed why just months later he fled.

Former Afghan president Ashraf Ghani gave a reason for why he fled the country amid the chaos of the U.S. withdrawal and Taliban resurgence a year ago, and said he would like to come back.

In an interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria that aired Sunday, Ghani explained why he exiled himself when in the past he had said he would die defending Afghanistan.

“No power in the world could persuade me to get on a plane and leave this country. It is a country I love, and I will die defending,” Ghani had told German publication Der Spiegel in May 2021.

“I did get on a plane because it became impossible to defend it,” Ghani said. He said that his presidential protection had left and that after his minister of defense told him the country could not be defended, he went to the ministry and found that it was empty.

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“I was the last to leave, and the reason I left was because I did not want to give the Taliban and their supporters the pleasure of yet again humiliating an Afghan president,” he said.

At another point in the interview, Ghani said it is his desire to eventually go back to Afghanistan.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani is seated after his meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden in Washington, June 25, 2021. In an interview aired by the BBC on Thursday, Dec. 30, 2021, Afghanistan’s former president recounts his final hours in office, says he had just minutes to decide to flee and denies an agreement was in the works for a peaceful takeover, disputing accounts of former government officials, Taliban and even a former U.S. negotiator. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File) (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

“I hope so. Very much. It’s my home,” he said, noting that his family has been in the same village for 500-600 years.

“I want to be able to help my county heal,” he added, “and I hope to be able to do that from the place that every cell of my body belongs and without with I always feel alien.”

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The Taliban swiftly took over Afghanistan as American forces were exiting the country. Since then, women have faced extreme restrictions in daily life and al Qaeda has built up its presence there.

“We went to Afghanistan to stop the Taliban from providing sanctuary to the al Qaeda, from which the attack on the United States took place. We all know that. And what did this decision get us?” retired Gen. Jack Keane said in a “Fox News Sunday” interview. “It got us the Taliban in charge again … providing sanctuary to the al Qaeda,”