Afghanistan's four top security officials resign: government sources
'He has resigned because he is preparing to run for presidential election next year,' a senior government official close to Atmar said
August 26, 2018
KABUL: Afghanistan’s ministers of defence and interior, as well as another security chief, quit on Saturday, government sources said, following the resignation of the president’s national security adviser earlier in the day.
“We have received four resignations by two ministers and two senior security officials,” an official in President Ashraf Ghani’s office told Reuters.
Government sources said the new resignations were from Defense Minister Tariq Shah Bahrami and Interior Minister Wais Barmak, as well as Masoom Stanekzai, the head of the National Directorate of Security. They followed a decision by National Security Advisor Hanif Atmar to quit.
Officials working directly with the two ministers and Stanekzai were not immediately available to comment.
But two senior interior ministry officials said the country’s top security officials cited differences with the government over policy amid the deteriorating security situation as the main reason for resigning.
Heavy fighting between Taliban insurgents and Afghan forces across the country this year, as well as repeated suicide attacks in Kabul and other major cities, have underlined the dire security situation facing Afghanistan.
With parliamentary elections due on October 20, authorities had been bracing for more attacks. But even so, the scale of the violence has shocked government officials, who are facing bitter criticism over their handling of the war.
Top security adviser resigns in break with Ghani
Earlier, Atmar, one of the most influential aides to President Ghani, had also resigned on Saturday, a move one official said could be followed by his own bid for the top job in next year’s scheduled election.
His resignation was accepted by Ghani, presidential spokesperson Haroon Chakhansuri told Reuters.
The spokesperson gave no official reason for the abrupt departure, but a copy of Atmar’s resignation letter obtained by Reuters said he had developed “serious differences over policies and principles with government leadership”.
A senior government official close to Atmar, who spoke on condition that his name was not used, said the former security adviser was considering running against Ghani in the 2019 vote.
“He has resigned because he is preparing to run for presidential election next year,” said the official.
Atmar, 49, has been considered the second-most powerful official in Afghanistan since he became national security adviser after Ghani was sworn in as president in late 2014.
He was also minister of interior under former President Hamid Karzai before being sacked in 2010 after Taliban insurgents’ attacked a “peace jirga” that was an early attempt at ending the now-17-year-old war with the Taliban.
The exact details of the rift with Ghani were not immediately clear, but in the past week, the Afghan government declined to attend peace talks hosted by Russia that representatives of the Taliban are expected to attend.
Atmar, who began his security career with the Soviet Union-backed government in the late 1980s, is still seen as close to Russia.
Ghani on Saturday appointed 35-year-old Hamdullah Mohib, the Afghan ambassador to the United States, to replace Atmar as national security adviser, the presidential spokesman said.
