The former head of Afghanistan’s intelligence service quit after seeing himself as an obstacle to President Hamid Karzai’s plan to reach out to insurgents for talks, he said on Monday, a day after his resignation. Amrullah Saleh — for six years a key figure in the anti-Taliban fight as head of the National Directorate for Security — said Mr Karzai had already lost faith in his security forces before an attack on a peace conference last week.
Mr Saleh resigned on Monday along with Hanif Atmar, who controlled the police as interior minister. Karzai’s office said the two top security officials had quit because of lapses that led to an insurgent attack on last week’s peace meeting.
In an interview at his home in the Afghan capital, Mr Saleh described plans to negotiate with insurgents as a “disgrace”, and said one of the main reasons he had quit was because Mr Karzai had ordered a review of Taliban prisoners in detention.
He denied being forced out, saying he had contemplated quitting for a “very long time”. “A number of reasons had accumulated and it needed a tipping point and the jirga was the tipping point,” he said. He also spoke out strongly about what he called Pakistani involvement in attacks in Afghanistan, describing Pakistani intelligence as “part of the landscape of destruction”.
Insurgents fired at least four rockets at a giant tent holding the traditional jirga of 1,600 Afghan notables and elders last Wednesday.