Hamid Karzai, the former president of Afghanistan, had a reputation for speaking bluntly during the years he was in power. Now that he is out of office he is even more blunt, as he showed in an interview in Kabul this week with VOA Afghan Service reporter Rahim Gul Sarwan. Asked about the presence of Islamic State elements in Afghanistan, the former president suggested it is not a serious threat: “Daesh [Islamic State] is not an Afghan-born body ... it is not indigenous to Afghanistan.” Regarding threats against Afghanistan, Karzai focused exclusively on Pakistan. He blamed Pakistan’s military and intelligence agencies for “creating radicalism, promoting radicalism, using radicalism as a tool of terrorism.” When it comes to the US he asked Washington to focus “more on the Afghan people and the development of Afghanistan.”
The full interview can be found here.