Afghan President Ashraf Ghani left the country and resigned.

This was announced by the head of the Supreme Council for National Reconciliation in Afghanistan, Abdullah Abdullah.

The information that Ghani left the presidential palace was confirmed by the Russian embassy.

Afghan TV channel TOLOnews also announced the president's departure from the country, and Iranian news agency Tasnim News Agency published a video of President Ghani boarding the plane. 

Later, Ghani himself published a post on Facebook in which he wrote that he had decided to leave his post because the Taliban were preparing to attack Kabul.

The Taliban have made it clear that they are ready to carry out ... an attack on all of Kabul ... to overthrow me.

To prevent the carnage, I decided to leave, ”he wrote.

Regional and international media later reported that the Taliban entered Kabul without a fight, occupying government offices abandoned by government forces.

For example, according to the Al Arabiya TV channel, the militants took control of Kabul University, some ministries and empty police stations.

At the same time, representatives of the movement said that residents of the city had nothing to fear, and promised that they would not attack civil servants and police officers.

At the same time, local media reported that in order to prevent provocations, Acting Interior Minister of Afghanistan Abdul Sattar Mirzakval announced a curfew in the capital - starting at 21:00 local time (19:30 Moscow time), residents of Kabul are prohibited from leaving their homes.

Earlier, the Iranian TV channel IRIB reported that the Taliban control 90% of the country's territory.

In turn, the Associated Press said that the radical movement took control of all border crossings, and now it is possible to leave the country only from the Kabul airport.

A number of countries, in particular the United States, Great Britain, the Federal Republic of Germany and the Czech Republic, have begun an emergency evacuation of their embassies.

After the Taliban seized the capital of Afghanistan, the media spread information about the creation of an interim council and a transitional government, but soon Reuters, citing Taliban representatives, reported that the movement expects a direct transfer of power without any transitional periods.

In addition, the Taliban announced that they would soon announce the "return" of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, as they called the territories of the country under their control from 1996 to 2001.

The attack of the radicals

Recall that the Taliban launched a large-scale offensive against the backdrop of the withdrawal of the US and NATO armed forces from Afghanistan.

US troops were scheduled to leave the country by May of this year, following an agreement with the Taliban reached with the Trump administration in 2020.

Joe Biden later pushed the US withdrawal date to September 11, 2021.

In early July, under cover of night, American soldiers left the Bagram airbase without warning the Afghan security forces.

Experts have repeatedly noted that the accelerated reduction of the US military presence in the country has provoked the activation of the Taliban.

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At first, the movement took possession of significant areas in the countryside and borders with neighboring Central Asian countries, after which it launched an offensive on large cities and administrative centers.

Realizing that it could not stand up to the Taliban on its own, the Afghan government asked the United States for air support.

On August 7, media reported that the US Air Force launched airstrikes on militant positions.

At the same time, the US State Department announced on August 10 that US Special Representative for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad went to Qatar to persuade the Taliban to stop the offensive.

At the same time, the Pentagon was forced to admit that the security situation in Afghanistan was developing in an undesirable manner.

At the same time, the official representative of the US defense department, John Kirby, expressed confidence that the government forces have the ability to "change the situation."

It is worth noting that Joe Biden in early July expressed confidence that the Afghan authorities have the ability to retain power after the withdrawal of American troops.

At the same time, the hasty withdrawal of US troops, which provoked an almost complete seizure of power in the country by the Taliban, was criticized by Biden's predecessor, ex-President Donald Trump.

According to him, the situation would have developed differently if the Democrat had adhered to the plan that Trump left him.

“He fled Afghanistan instead of following the plan our administration left him - a plan that protected our people and property and ensured that the Taliban would never even consider taking over our embassy or providing a base for new attacks on America. "- said Trump. 

In turn, Joe Biden also issued a statement in which he indicated that he inherited from Trump an agreement that significantly strengthened the position of the Taliban.

“As president, I inherited the agreement that was concluded by my predecessor and to discuss which on the eve of September 11, 2019, he invited the Taliban to Camp David.

With its signing, the Taliban are militarily in the strongest position since 2001, and a deadline for the withdrawal of American forces was set on May 1, 2021.

In addition, shortly before leaving the presidency, he reduced the number of American troops to a minimum of 2,500, "Biden said.

According to the head of the White House, Trump's policies left him with only two options: either send additional troops to "fight again in a foreign civil conflict," or withdraw troops and allies from the country.

At the same time, Biden said that he had ordered the deployment of 5,000 troops in Afghanistan to ensure the safe evacuation of US diplomats and Afghan allies from the country.

The official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova, commenting on the events taking place in Afghanistan, called the situation paradoxical.

“Surprisingly, but true: there is a confrontation between two forces in Afghanistan, both of which are the result of the US thought process,” Zakharova wrote on Telegram.

She stressed that "the world is watching with horror the result of another historical experiment in Washington."

Flight and defeat

As the Taliban advanced on various administrative centers, and later on Kabul, the question of placing refugees from Afghanistan arose.

A video was posted on social media showing a crowd of people trying to board a C-17 military aircraft at the Kabul airport.

Albania announced its readiness, at the request of the United States, to temporarily place on its territory refugees from Afghanistan who provided assistance to the American military and diplomats.

While agreeing to host the refugees, Prime Minister Edi Rama stressed that Washington is Tirana's “great ally”.

Earlier, Canada, whose troops took part in the US and NATO intervention in Afghanistan until 2011, announced its readiness to accept 20 thousand refugees threatened by the Taliban.

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Konstantin Blokhin, a leading researcher at the Center for Security Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, notes that the experience of the United States and the West has shown that it is impossible to create a democratic state with a combat-ready army, simply flooding a certain territory with money.

“Money flowed like a river there.

According to the most conservative estimates, the American side spent more than $ 2 trillion on Afghanistan, but without results.

They were buried in this mountainous area.

But here it is not only about the corruption of Afghanistan, but also about the corruption on the part of the United States, which, in fact, did nothing, ”the expert emphasized.

Now the Taliban virtually completely control the power in the country, added Konstantin Blokhin.

“The Taliban are now positioning themselves as a backbone force. They understand very well that as a result of the US withdrawal from the region, a power vacuum has emerged, and it is clear that so far no other power is ready to demonstrate a desire to fill this vacuum, except for the Taliban itself. They see that there are no particular competitors, and therefore they take all power under their control. And it is clear that if there is no external influence on Afghanistan, nothing threatens the Taliban, ”the political scientist said in an interview with RT.

According to Vladimir Batyuk, head of the Center for Political-Military Studies of the Institute of the USA and Canada, Russian Academy of Sciences, such a rapid offensive by the Taliban and its relatively peaceful capture of Kabul can be explained by the Afghan security forces' lack of loyalty to the government, as well as the lack of desire to fight the Taliban, with whom they sometimes connected by tribal relations.

“In this case, the readiness of a soldier, soldier or officer to give his life for the ideals that have been instilled in him is of great importance.

However, the Afghans have no desire to fight for the pro-American regime, let alone give their lives for it, ”the expert noted.

At the same time, the responsibility for the current state of affairs lies entirely with the United States, which have occupied Afghanistan since 2001, Vladimir Batyuk added.

“According to the norms of international law, it is the occupiers who bear full responsibility for what is happening on the territory they occupied.

In general, the actions of the United States over the past 20 years in Afghanistan are a complete failure, the fruits of which they are reaping now, when the Taliban is marching across the country in triumph and no one is resisting him, "the source said.

In addition, as a result of their activities for 20 years, only one viable branch of the economy remained in Afghanistan - the production of drugs.

While the rest, in fact, ceased to exist, recalled Batyuk.

“In general, in the Afghan people, this cannot cause any feelings of gratitude to the United States, so the result is quite natural: the Taliban will come to power, and the United States will no longer be able to change this,” the expert concluded.

* "Taliban" - the organization was recognized as terrorist by the decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation of February 14, 2003.