Former US President Donald Trump said he threatened to “wipe out” Co-founder of the Taliban If he breaks the agreement with him, but sends him a picture of his house, to prove that he is able to do so.
Trump, 76, said in an interview with “Fox News” that he threatened Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar during the talks, which lasted 18 months before his successor, President Biden, ordered a “terrible withdrawal” from Afghanistan.
“I sent him a picture of his house,” Trump said of the leader, nicknamed “Baradar the Butcher,” who is now deputy prime minister after the Taliban seized power.
Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, head of the Taliban’s political bureau
In the second part of his live interview, Trump stated that Baradar responded by saying, “But why would you send me a picture of my house?”, to which Trump replied, “If I do anything, we will hit you more than any country has ever suffered.” Baradar replied, “I completely understand, Mr. President.” Trump commented, “I don’t know if Mr. President said to Biden or not.”
Trump noted how he “wanted to get out” of Afghanistan… and he was the one who reduced the US presence to “a very few soldiers.”
“We could have had a very similar timeline, but I would have ordered the US military to be the last to get out,” he insisted, noting that he also wasn’t allowed to leave the world’s best military equipment “worth there.”
Instead, he said, Biden’s “terrible withdrawal” led to the deaths of 13 military personnel in horrific scenes of chaos at Kabul airport in August last year.
“We lost 13 soldiers, and we also had a lot of soldiers who were horribly wounded, no legs, no arms…” Trump said.
He also insisted that “a lot of bad people” were also able to flee Afghanistan amid crowds in American planes. “A lot of bad guys have boarded those planes…and they are bad terrorists,” he said.