Leaked documents suggest Qatar bribed US-backed Afghan leaders to avoid resisting Taliban
Leaked documents suggest that Qatar paid hundreds of millions of dollars to key Afghan government officials – including a former president – to not resist the Taliban.
The documents reportedly show that Qatar paid $110m to ex-president Ashraf Ghani to stop the Afghan military fighting the Taliban a month before the 2021 collapse of the US-backed government. The Khaama Press alleges that payments of $51m and $61m were made to Marshal Dostum and Atta Mohammad Noor respectively – both powerful figures in Afghan politics. Dostum was a senior military officer. and major player in successive Afghan governments. Noor was similarly highly ranked, as former governor of Balkh province.
The documents were first reported by Italian media outlet Tg1 following an investigation by journalist Filippo Rossi:
L’esclusiva Tg1. Documenti che provano il finanziamento del Qatar agli uomini chiave Afghani per consegnare il paese ai talebani senza combattere. @Filippo_Rossi90 #Afghanistan #taleban #tg1 #esclusiva pic.twitter.com/NfPrs6hBUp
— Tg1 (@Tg1Rai) February 1, 2023
The story was subsequently reported in English by the Afghan-based Khaama Press News Agency.
Corruption
The investigation found three documents which appear to show corruption at the highest levels. One claims that Ajmal Ahmadi, former head of an Afghan bank and a close advisor to Ghani, received $110m from Qatar on Ghani’s behalf.
Ghani was previously accused of fleeing Afghanistan with millions of dollars during the 2021 collapse:
He denied reports that he escaped the Islamist militants with over $150 million in cash belonging to the Afghan people, calling the claims “completely and categorically false.”
One document reportedly shows Dostum received $51m from Qatar. Khaama reported :
The document praised Dostum’s sincere cooperation in retreating from the northern provinces’ battlefields, such as Fariyab and Jawzjan provinces.
On top of this, one Mohammad Farhad Azimi – a representative of Atta Mohammad Noor – received $61m from a Qatari representative in Kabul. Noor is former anti-Taliban commander. Both Noor and Dostum reportedly fled to Uzbekistan as Afghanistan collapsed in August 2021.
Meetings and conspiracies
This conspiracy, then, would have taken place at the very highest levels of leadership. Khaama reported that :
The documents also revealed that all three representatives of the former Afghan leaders received money from the Qatar representative after signing the documents on July 7, 2021.
The documents also detailed a meeting between a Qatari official and Ghani in July 2021, around a month before the occupation and the US-backed government collapsed.
The Khaama report claims the documents indicate a conspiracy among powerful Afghan figures to sell out for Qatari cash:
The letters also further highlight that the money was granted to all three prominent leaders to avoid resisting the Taliban fighters.
And that:
The documents allegedly show that Ashraf Ghani received money to avoid resistance. In contrast, Dostum and Noor received money from the Qatar government not to fight against the Taliban in Northern Afghanistan.
2021 Collapse
The speed of the 2021 collapse of the Afghan government – and with it the 20-year US occupation – shocked many. Since then, the people in Afghanistan have continued to suffer great hardships, much as they did under foreign occupation.
It remains to be seen how concrete these claims are. Clearly, more information is needed. However, the possibility that Afghanistan’s own leaders sold out the country to the Taliban adds another layer of bitterness to what is already one of the great human tragedies of our times.
Featured image via Wikimedia Commons/Voice of America News, cropped to 770 x 403.
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Maybe you prefer that Afghanistan carry on fighting forever: killing more men, women and children. Typical racist, white saviour and orientalist rubbish. Maybe get a job for the CIA while you’re at it
Yeah, not at all a good article. Pretty trash, in fact.
The Taliban had control of the country, because the foreign occupiers were the absolute worse scum possible. Afghan lives were treated as less than animals are in the US.
The Taliban didn’t drive the westerners out, the behaviour of the western forces itself did that. Every Afghan was as sick of the Yanks and British as the Palestinians are sick of the Zionazis.
And for exactly the same reasons.
If Qatar did this, then it was most likely to reduce the inevitable bloodshed. And buying themselves influence, naturally. The Yanks were going, finally, it would be FUTILE and STUPID to throw more lives to protect America’s Vichy regime.
Also, I am genuinely DISGUSTED you avoided mentioning the ongoing sanctions. Perhaps it was in the link, but if you’re going to pretent to CARE about the Afghans, you should add relevant informations such as “The US sanctions are causing deliberately the greatest humanitarian crisis on the planet, sans the US/Saud war against Yemen”. And THEN add a link. I’m going to assume for your benefit that was what was in the link. And not check.
As Madge said, not impressive, not impressive at all.
Perhaps you lost comrades there. I’m 100% certain the Afghan people didn’t invite them in personally, know what I mean?
If our soldiers are victims, it is ENTIRELY the fault of the LYING and CORRUPT politicians who put them there.
Says a lot about the educational level of Britain when soldiers take pot shots at images of Corbyn, who promised to bring them home and build them houses along with proper welfare, and yet they rim the warmongers who sent them out, and then dump them on the streets when they return with inadequate mental and medical care. >_<
So – unusually – it seems US patsy Ghani was telling the truth – the sacks of money famously escaping with him were not from the treasury, but a Qatari gift to stop the bloodshed.
I wonder if he had to wash his mouth out to get rid of the unusual taste of honesty?
Conditions are bad under the Taliban – interestingly, not as bad as the FIRST time the Yanks/ISI put them in charge, – except the economic situation is 100x worse.
And all by CHOICE of the sick fucks in DC.
So lets ladle the outrage where it really belongs.