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US sought to contain neighbors by invading Afghanistan: Iran envoy

Friday, 30 December 2022 10:56 AM [ Last Update: Friday, 30 December 2022 11:09 AM ]

Supplies are dropped to US troops in Afghanistan's Ghazni province in May 2007. (File photo by AFP)

An Iranian diplomat says Washington’s main goal for invading Afghanistan was to contain the Asian country’s neighbors, despite its alleged fight against terrorism.

“Americans came to Afghanistan under the pretext of confronting terrorism but their main aim was to contain and dominate the neighboring countries,” Hassan Kazemi-Qomi, Iranian president’s special envoy on Afghanistan affairs, said on Friday in an interview with Al-Alam TV.

Kazemi-Qomi has also been recently appointed as Iran’s caretaker ambassador to Kabul as the tenure of former envoy Bahador Aminian came to an end.

“Their first excuse for choosing Afghanistan for the invasion was the existence of terrorism and Al-Qaeda while the group came to Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks,” he said.

Americans are pursuing their plans through occupation and military presence while al-Qaeda is carrying out its assigned missions as a proxy, added the diplomat.

“Americans brought Daesh to Afghanistan,” he said, warning that the US is “trying to further its plans in Afghanistan through this proxy war.”

US waged war on Afghans, indulged in corruption, says former president Karzai

Afghanistan’s former president Hamid Karzai has blamed the United States for the fate of the war-ravaged country, saying the protracted war “was not our war" but used by the US and its allies against the people of Afghanistan.

The US invaded Afghanistan in October 2001 following the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, despite the fact that no Afghan national was involved in the attacks. Hundreds of thousands of Afghans died in the US war of aggression on the country.

American forces had occupied the country for about two decades on the pretext of fighting against the Taliban. But as the US forces left Afghanistan, the Taliban stormed into the capital Kabul in August last year, weakened by continued foreign occupation.

The Taliban took over the capital Kabul on August 8, 2021, and declared that the war in Afghanistan was over. The militants entered the presidential palace after President Ashraf Ghani fled the country.

Hundreds of thousands of Afghans died in the US war on the country while its irresponsible withdrawal is also leading to a humanitarian crisis in the war-torn state.

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