Former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on Thursday described his decision to flee the country to have been "taken in minutes" amid the Taliban takeover in August. He said he did not know he was leaving the country until he was taking off. "I had to sacrifice myself in order to save Kabul and to expose the situation for what it is: A violent coup, not a political agreement."
In his first interview since his departure from Afghanistan, Ghani told BBC's Radio that on the morning of Aug. 15, 2021, the day the Taliban took control of the capital and his own government collapsed, he had "no inkling" that it would be his last day in Afghanistan.
But by that afternoon, security at the Presidential Palace had "collapsed," he said.
"If I take a stand, they will all be killed, and they were not capable of defending me," Ghani said in the interview, conducted by former United Kingdom Chief of Defense Staff Gen. Nick Carter.
His national security adviser, Hamdullah Mohib, was "literally terrified," Ghani said. "He did not give me more than two minutes."
He said his instructions had originally been to fly by helicopter to southeastern Khost city.
But Khost had fallen in the Taliban's lightning offensive, which saw provincial capitals topple around the country in the days ahead of the withdrawal of international forces, set for the end of August.
The eastern city of Jalalabad, which borders Pakistan, had also fallen, he said.
"I did not know where we will go," Ghani said.
"Only when we took off did it become clear that we were leaving."
Ghani has been in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) ever since. He said his decision to leave was "the hardest thing."
He has been highly criticized in Afghanistan for leaving, with Afghans now trapped under the Taliban's harsh rule accusing him of abandoning them and taking off with millions of dollars in cash, a claim he "categorically" denied again on Thursday.
The former World Bank official has released several previous statements on his departure, admitting that he owed the Afghan people an explanation.
He reiterated that his first concern had been to prevent brutal street fighting in the capital, already packed with tens of thousands of refugees fleeing violence elsewhere in the country.
But even if he'd stayed, he said, he could not have changed the outcome, which has seen the Taliban establish their new regime as the country faces one of the worst humanitarian crises in history.
"Unfortunately, I was painted in total black," he said. "It became an American issue. Not an Afghan issue."
"My life work has been destroyed, my values have been trampled on and I've been made a scapegoat," he said.
Afghans had "rightly" blamed him, he said. "I completely understand that anger, because I share that anger."
