Alwaght- Former Afghan president Hamid Karzai blames the US for rise of ISIS in his motherland, saying Washington has created the terrorist group.
“Daesh is a US product,” Karzai said on Wednesday in an exclusive interview with Fox News using Arabic acronym for ISIS.
“Daesh -- which is clearly foreign -- emerged in 2015 during the US presence,” said Karzai who was president from December 2004 to September 2014.
The ex-Afghan leader further said he receives regular reports of unmarked helicopters airdropping supplies to ISIS terrorists active on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, saying Washington “must explain this.”
Karzai further pointed to last month’s dropping of an American mega-bomb on Afghanistan’s eastern province of Nangarhar, saying Washington had “coordinated” the attack with ISIS terrorists.
The Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) -- the US military’s largest non-nuclear bomb has reportedly killed nearly 100 people.
Karzai said “Daesh had already emptied most of their (families and militants) so this was coordinated. This group is just a US tool. This cannot be any other tool.”
“First, Daesh comes to drive people away and then the US comes and drops that big bomb,” he added, saying he was convinced that the use of the massive bomb “was a joint US-Daesh operation.”
The former Afghan leader also told Fox News that the US “simply wants to use Afghanistan terrain to “test” its toys.
“They [America] think this is no man’s land for testing and abuse, but they are wrong about that,” Karzai said. “We have a deeply patriotic population here that will not allow this.”
He also quibbled with MOAB’s nickname, “Mother of All Bombs,” saying it should be “DOAB.”
"The mother is a kind figure. She does not fit with a bomb," Karzai lamented. "This should be the 'Deadliest of All Bombs.' The casualty is Afghan sovereignty, our soil and, most hurtfully, our dignity. How can they say they are our allies and then bomb us?"
He said several metric tons of chemicals were injected into the ground on MOAB’s detonation,.
Karzai said that after that bomb was detonated he decided to destroy the "very nice" letter he had carefully crafted for President Trump, proposing such solutions as the need for less military engagement and alternatives "to rivalry" in the war-stricken country.
"I was about to sign it and then the MOAB came, so I abandoned it," Karzai said. "It was so disrespectful, why would I send him a letter?"
The development comes as the US military mulls the deployment of thousands more troops to Afghanistan.
US media quoted a senior senator as saying Thursday that the Pentagon plans to ask for between 3,000 and 5,000 more conventional military personnel with the stated aim of advising and assisting Afghan military and police units.
The afghan diplomat also said that the US officials tried to defame him in the waning years of his presidency, and accused him of crony capitalism after he opposed Washington's measures in his homeland.
"When this [accusations] emerged was when I began to speak out in opposition to the U.S. of spraying all our fields with chemicals," he said. "They used [the accusation of] 'corruption' then as another tool."
Karzai regards as his biggest presidential failure allowing a free market "laissez-faire" economic system, whereby transactions between public and private entities can proceed without government intervention.
"I should have gone with a Scandinavian or Chinese model of economy," he noted. "But other than that, I am happy. I did what I did."
The US currently maintains nearly 8,400 soldiers in Afghanistan with nearly 5,000 more troops from NATO allies.
Washington and its allies first invaded the country in 2001 as part of the so-called war on terror. The invasion removed Taliban from power, but militancy continues to this day.
