KABUL – Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on Sunday replaced two of thecountry’s top security chiefs with staunch anti-Taliban officials, in amajor shake-up days after US President Donald Trump’s decision to slashtroop numbers in the country.
Amrullah Saleh and Assadullah Khaled, both former heads of the Afghanintelligence agency, have been appointed to the critical posts of interiorminister and defence minister, respectively, a presidential decree said.
There was no official explanation for the sudden reshuffle.
But it comes four months after Ghani rejected the resignations of formerinterior minister Wais Ahmad Barmak and defence minister Tariq Shah Bahramifollowing criticism over an increasingly deadly insurgency.
The move caps a tumultuous few days for Afghanistan after an Americanofficial told AFP late last week that Trump had decided to pull out”roughly half” of the 14,000 US forces in the country.
The unexpected move stunned and dismayed foreign diplomats and Afghanofficials in Kabul who are intensifying a push to end the 17-year conflictwith the Taliban.
While the Taliban has not issued a formal statement on Trump’s plan, asenior commander told AFP the group was “more than happy”.
Trump’s decision apparently came Tuesday as US peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzadmet with the Taliban in Abu Dhabi, part of efforts to bring the militantsto the negotiating table with Kabul.
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Observers fear the hasty move could undermine Khalilzad’s negotiatingposition, embolden the Taliban, and further erode morale among Afghanforces, which are being slaughtered at a record rate.
Ghani, who is planning to seek re-election in April, could be trying tostrengthen his security credentials ahead of the vote.
Saleh, a fierce government critic who fought against the Taliban in the1990s, served as head of the National Directorate of Security (NDS) from2004 to 2010.
Khaled was briefly NDS chief in 2012 before being wounded by a Talibansuicide bomber.
Both men will serve as acting ministers until the parliament approves theirappointments.
