Taliban Fighters Have Tea, Sit on Couches Inside General Dostum’s Empty Ornate House
Wild video shows Taliban fighters lounge in fleeing military leader’s mansion
The surreal scene of the insurrectionists relaxing on gold-plated furniture and admiring possessions in the ornate home of military leader Abdul Rashid Dostum — a US ally — was captured on footage circulating on social media Saturday, according to Saudi Arabi-based news channel Al Arabiya.
Dostum, a former Afghan vice president, is one of two notorious strongmen in the region who fled over the border into Uzbekistan Saturday amid the Taliban’s encroachment.
The 67-year-old militia leader and his cohort, former governor Atta Mohammad Noor, are among the Taliban’s biggest foes and have been key players in Afghanistan since the 1980s the outlet reported.
Both had vowed to protect Mazar-i-Sharif, the country’s fourth-largest city, along with Afghan security forces.
“They will never escape. They will all be killed. I will turn northern Afghanistan into the graveyard of the Taliban,” Dostum had reportedly vowed.
The fall of the city handed the Taliban control over all of northern Afghanistan. Noor had been commanding militia forces when the city was captured, according to the report. He said on Twitter that both he and Dostum were safe, while blaming a “conspiracy” for the fall of the north to the Taliban.
