Preview: Hamid Karzai says al-Qaeda is a ‘myth’
Former Afghan president denies the existence of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.
On the 14th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Afghan President Hamid Karzai joins Mehdi Hasan in UpFront’s Headliner segment. In this online preview, Karzai dismisses al-Qaeda’s presence in the country, calling it a “myth”.
”[Al-Qaeda
is for me a myth […] For us, they don’t exist”]
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“I don’t know if al-Qaeda existed and I don’t know if they exist,” said Karzai. “I have not seen them and I’ve not had any report about them, any report that would indicate that al-Qaeda is operating in Afghanistan.”
Asked whether he believed Osama bin Laden carried out the 9/11 attacks in New York and Washington DC and plotted them from Afghanistan, he responded: “That is what I have heard from our Western friends. That’s what the Western media says. There is no doubt that an operation, a terrorist operation was conducted in New York and in Washington.”
Asked again by Hasan if he believed the 9/11 attacks were the responsibility of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, the former president responded: “I neither believe nor disbelieve something that I don’t know about. I can tell you that Afghanistan was as much a victim of terrorism as was America, as were the people who were killed in the September 11th terrorist attacks.”
Watch the full episode on Al Jazeera English on Friday, September 11, at 19:30GMT
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Published On 10 Sep 2015