Hamid Karzai, the former president of Afghanistan, accused the US of working with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group in his country.
In an exclusive interview with Al Jazeera’s UpFront aired on Friday, Karzai said the US government had allowed ISIL, also known as ISIS, to flourish inside Afghanistan.
“In my view under the full presence, surveillance, military, political, intelligence, Daesh [ISIL] has emerged,” he said.
Karzai said the US administration of President Donald Trump made ISIL an excuse to drop a massive bomb in Afghanistan on April 2017.
“And the next day, Daesh takes the next district in Afghanistan,” he said referring to the Arabic name of the armed group.
“That proves to us that there is a hand in it and that hand can be no one else but them [the US] in Afghanistan.”
Karzai also said he welcomed a recent call by the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor to investigate war crimes in Afghanistan, including those committed during his tenure in office.
“She’s right to launch such an investigation,” Karzai told UpFront host Mehdi Hasan, referring to ICC Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda’s request to launch an investigation in Afghanistan.
Karzai also acknowledged that there were human rights violations during his government, and possibly on his watch.
“Definitely, there were violations by the Afghan security forces, by the US, and by others.”
Karzai said he would help with any investigation, even into his own potential complicity.
Follow TKG on Twitter & Facebook
