"Will Never Bow to Taliban," Former Afghan Vice-President Says

Former vice-president of Afghanistan, Amrullah Saleh announced on Sunday that he will remain in his country, and will never bow in front of "the Taliban".

"I will never, ever & under no circumstances bow to the Taliban terrorists. I will never betray d soul & legacy of my hero Ahmad Shah Masoud, the commander, the legend & the guide. I won't disappoint millions who listened to me. I will never be under one ceiling with the Taliban. NEVER," he tweeted.

"In my soil. With d people. For a cause & purpose. With a solid belief in righteousness. Opposing Pak-backed oppression & brutal dictatorship is our legitimacy," he added.

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On Sunday, Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani fled the country as the Taliban moved further into Kabul.

His countrymen and foreigners alike raced for the exit, signaling the end of a 20-year Western experiment aimed at remaking Afghanistan.

“Ghani flew out of the country,” two officials revealed on condition of anonymity as they weren’t authorized to brief journalists. Abdullah Abdullah, the head of the Afghan National Reconciliation Council, later confirmed Ghani had left in an online video.

“He left Afghanistan in a hard time, God hold him accountable,” Abdullah said.

Civilians fearing that the Taliban could reimpose the kind of brutal rule that all but eliminated women’s rights rushed to leave the country, lining up at cash machines to withdraw their life savings.

Helicopters buzzed overhead to evacuate personnel from the U.S. Embassy, while smoke rose near the compound as staff destroyed important documents. Several other Western missions also prepared to pull their people out.

In a stunning route, the Taliban seized nearly all of Afghanistan in just over a week, despite the billions of dollars spent by the U.S. and NATO over nearly two decades to build up Afghan security forces. Just days earlier, an American military assessment estimated it would be a month before the capital would come under insurgent pressure.

Instead, the Taliban swiftly defeated, co-opted, or sent Afghan security forces fleeing from wide swaths of the country, even though they had some air support from the U.S. military.