Afghan president Ghani says he left country in order to avoid bloodshed

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said on Sunday he left the country in order to avoid bloodshed, as the Taliban entered the presidential palace in Kabul.

Ghani left in order to avoid clashes with the Taliban that would endanger millions of Kabul residents, he said in a Facebook post – his first comments since leaving the country.

He did not disclose details on his current location.

It was not yet clear where Ghani was headed or how exactly power would be transferred following the Taliban’s lightning sweep in recent weeks across Afghanistan. Their advance accelerated as U.S. and other foreign troops withdrew in line with President Joe Biden’s desire to end America’s longest war, launched in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

By evening, the Taliban said they had taken control of most of the districts around the outskirts of the capital.

The U.S. Embassy said there were reports the capital’s airport, where diplomats, officials and other Afghans had fled, had come under fire.

Hundreds of Afghans, some of them government ministers and government employees and also other civilians including many women and children, crowded in the terminal desperately waiting for flights out.

During Sunday, the government’s acting interior minister, Abdul Sattar Mirzakawal, said power would be handed over to a transitional administration. He tweeted: “There won’t be an attack on the city, it is agreed that there will be a peaceful handover”.

However, two Taliban officials told Reuters there would be no transitional government. The Taliban said earlier it was waiting for Ghani’s Western-backed government to surrender peacefully.