Karzai: Al-Qaeda had a legendary presence in Afghanistan

The outgoing president Hamid Karzai, says that Al Qaeda has never operated in Afghanistan, dismissing the notion that the terror group plotted the Sept. 11 terror attacks inside the country as “a myth,” and blaming Pakistani militias for the rise of the Islamic State inside Afghan borders.

On the eve of the anniversary of the 2001 attacks, Karzai, who left office last year after 12 years, used an interview with al Jazeera to express his doubt that the terrorist group led by the late Osama bin Laden was responsible for the operation which prompted the invasion of Afghanistan.

I don’t know if al-Qaeda existed and I don’t know if they exist,” said Karzai. “I have not seen them and I’ve not had any report about them, any report that would indicate that al-Qaeda is operating in Afghanistan.”

Asked whether he believed Osama bin Laden carried out the 9/11 attacks in New York and Washington DC and plotted them from Afghanistan, he responded: “That is what I have heard from our Western friends. That’s what the Western media says. There is no doubt that an operation, a terrorist operation was conducted in New York and in Washington.”

Asked again by Hasan if he believed the 9/11 attacks were the responsibility of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, the former president responded: “I neither believe nor disbelieve something that I don’t know about. I can tell you that Afghanistan was as much a victim of terrorism as was America, as were the people who were killed in the September 11th terrorist attacks.”

Karzai, who had a poor relationship with successive leaders in Pakistan, also claimed in the interview that Islamic State fighters in Afghanistan are “definitely” members of “Pakistani militias”.

The former politician, who was the chosen candidate of the US to take over a new administration in the wake of the collapse of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan following the 2001 war, clashed repeatedly with Washington during his rule.

In recent months, Karzai has repeatedly been accused of attempting to undermine his successor, Ashraf Ghani, but in the interview, he ruled out an attempt to return to the Afghan presidency.

A daring and bloody operation involving US special forces and the CIA put Karzai back in Afghanistan in the last weeks of the 2001 war and then into power as a supposed consensus candidate.

As the Taliban regime crumbled, Karzai was seen as a the man of the hour. He was the head of a major tribe, of Pashtun ethnicity like around 40% of his compatriots, but moderate, educated and pro-western. Educated in India, with credentials as a “freedom fighter” during the war against the Soviets of the 1980s, he enthused officials in Washington, Kabul and London.

But Karzai quickly proved himself independent and contrarian, not hesitating to launch vitriolic attacks on his backers when they were responsible for civilian casualties during the bitter war against insurgents in the decade that followed or criticise broad western policies.

Officials from the US, the UK, Nato and the UN all repeatedly criticised Karzai for failing to crack down on rampant corruption and the booming narcotics trade in Afghanistan.