Afghan President Ashraf Ghani yesterday rejected the resignations of the intelligence chief and the interior and defense ministers as the government faces fierce criticism over an increasingly deadly insurgency.
Ghani called on Afghan Minister of Defense Tariq Shah Bahrami, Afghan Minister of the Interior Wais Ahmad Barmak and Afghan National Directorate of Security Director Masoom Stanekzai to continue their duties, after rejecting their resignation letters submitted on Saturday and demanding they help bolster the country’s defenses.
“President Ghani did not approve their resignations ... and gave them the necessary instructions to improve the security situation,” the presidential office said in a statement.
Earlier on Saturday, Ghani’s powerful national security adviser Mohammad Haneef Atmar had resigned, in a blow to the embattled Unity government before parliamentary elections scheduled for October.
The Ghani administration has been widely criticized for its inability to counter the energized insurgency. The Taliban have intensified assaults on police and troops across the country, and the Islamic State group has targeted the capital, Kabul.
This month has seen an extraordinarily violent series of incidents, including an attack that saw the Taliban storm the provincial capital of Ghazni — just a two-hour drive from Kabul — despite repeated warnings from local officials that the city was in danger.
Militants held large parts of the city for days and Afghan forces needed US air power to push them back, resulting in widespread destruction and estimates of hundreds of deaths.
The resignation letters came a week after Ghani offered a conditional three-month ceasefire to the Taliban, a move welcomed by the US and NATO after nearly 17 years of war.
The Taliban have yet to officially respond to the offer. A brief ceasefire in June had sparked hopes that a path for talks with the insurgents was opening.
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