Afghan Ex-President Hamid Karzai Angles for National Role After Taliban Takeover

When the Taliban rolled into Kabul a 7 days in the past and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled, yet another countrywide leader appeared on video from within the town, assuring individuals that he was going nowhere: the country’s previous head of state, Hamid Karzai.

Mr. Karzai—who led the to start with Afghan federal government immediately after the Taliban were being ousted in 2001 and served as president until finally 2014—stood along with his a few young daughters, struggling to make himself heard around the din of U.S. helicopters evacuating People in america and requested his fellow citizens not to worry.

“My family, my women and I are here with you,” the previous president explained to residents of the funds. “I talk to of the safety forces and the Taliban that wherever they are, they will glance immediately after the safety of the individuals.”

The message was not only meant to instill quiet. It was also portion of a campaign by Mr. Karzai that he suggests is aimed at avoiding battling and negotiating some kind of ability-sharing arrangement involving the Taliban and other Afghan political forces. For the earlier two many years, Mr. Karzai has sought to place himself at the center of these kinds of endeavours.

Last Sunday, he reported he was forming a a few-man or woman “coordination council” to safe a peaceful transfer of ability together with Abdullah Abdullah, the head of the previous Afghan government’s peace delegation, and the veteran Islamist warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.