One year after the Taliban took power in Afghanistan, former Afghan provincial governor Habiba Sarabi has warned the international community not to lose sight of the country.
Afghanistan is once again becoming a safe haven for terrorist militias under Taliban rule, the politician told dpa. "The world should not recognize the Taliban," she said.
Sarabi, who was education minister under President Hamid Karzai until 2005, also points to the responsibility of the international community.
Western powers had helped warlords and other corrupt politicians in Afghanistan gain power, Sarabi asserted.
However, it is precisely the high level of corruption in the ranks of the old Afghan government that experts consider to be one of the most important reasons for the collapse of the Afghan state and the Afghan army.
The Taliban took power in Afghanistan again in August 2021, 20 years after Western troops invaded.
The number of casualties in the fight against the Taliban has been high in recent years, especially among Afghan soldiers.
For many experts, however, the collapse of the Afghan state did not come as a surprise. In addition to support from regional powers, the peace treaty between the US and the Taliban in Doha 2020.
For the Afghan army, on the other hand, the peace talks were a bitter setback, says Sarabi. It was precisely at this difficult time that the withdrawal of international troops had taken place "without a clear plan and without clear responsibility."
"Afghanistan was simply put back into the hands of terrorists," the politician said. According to Sarabi, this is a development that will come back to bite the rest of the world. "If we forget Afghanistan, extremism will come knocking on our door."
