Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said Wednesday that he left the country in an attempt to avoid bloodshed. Ghani fled Sunday as the Taliban insurgents encircled and eventually entered the capital city of Kabul.
In a video statement posted on Facebook from the United Arab Emirates, the beleaguered Afghan president recounted the Taliban's takeover of Kabul.
With unrecognizable faces and speaking an unidentifiable language, Ghani said the Taliban fighters stormed through the presidential palace and searching every room to find him.
The decision, Ghani said, was this: Whatever took place 25 years ago was going to happen again -- "the Afghan president was going to be hanged," CNBC quoted Ghani as saying.
Ghani said, if he had stayed in the country, "the people of Afghanistan would have witnessed the president hanged once more."
The president referred to the execution of Afghan President Mohammad Najibullah, who was hanged in public after the terrorist group seized Kabul in 1996.
Ghani said he didn't want the bloodshed to commence in the capital as what happened in Yemen and Syria. "So I decided to go, to leave the city," according to CNN on Wednesday.
Speaking from exile, he said he supported the recent talks between the Taliban and former Afghan president Hamid Karzai to bring normalcy and peace to the country, a media report disclosed.
Ghani has been heavily criticized by former ministers for abandoning his country. He said he took advice from government officials before he fled.
Ghani is in the UAE, its foreign ministry said in a statement Wednesday. "The UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirms the UAE has welcomed President Ashraf Ghani and his family into the country on humanitarian grounds," ANI News reported.
According to Ghani, he was never intimidated or will never be scared of the Taliban, and that he didn't want to put Afghanistan's dignity "on the line."
Meanwhile, Ghani said that allegations he took a large amount of money when he fled Kabul are "completely unfounded."
Russia's embassy in Kabul said Monday that Ghani had fled with four cars and a helicopter packed with cash and had to leave some money behind because there wasn't space to take it all in, Reuters said, citing the RIA news agency.
