'US never fought Taliban': Ex-Afghan VP blasts US General Kurilla for calling Pakistan 'phenomenal partner'

Former Afghanistan Vice President Amrullah Saleh on Thursday hit back at US CENTCOM Commander General Michael Erik Kurilla for describing Pakistan as a "phenomenal partner" in counterterrorism. Saleh accused the US of never seriously confronting the Taliban and claimed that the Doha Agreement was nothing more than a NATO-backed regime change effort.

"President Trump is correct on saying that the U.S. Military never truly fought the Taliban — it was a Tom and Jerry engagement,” Saleh wrote on X. "If the US Army were a stock market portfolio, it would have lost 50 percent of its value after the statement by General Michael Erik Kurilla, who disregards the sacrifices of allies and perhaps some of his own soldiers to play a role in murky geopolitics."

Saleh questioned the credibility of the US approach to counterterrorism, saying: "This is why I argue that the Doha Agreement was a conspiratorial deal, akin to a U.S./NATO-backed coup plot for regime change, not a genuine peace process."

He also accused the US of selectively targeting terror groups. "We must acknowledge, for the 1001 time, that the Quetta Shura was a protected headquarters with assurances it would not be attacked. How come this general is able to chase five IS-KP operatives in the border areas but didn't know the location of Quetta Shura — Central Committee of the Taliban — for 20 years. Who are they trying to fool?"

Saleh's remarks came in response to General Kurilla's testimony before the US House Armed Services Committee, where he defended Washington's engagement with Islamabad. "We have to have a relationship with Pakistan and with India. I do not believe it is a binary switch that we can't have one with Pakistan if we have a relationship with India," Kurilla said. "We should look at the merits of the relationship for the positives that it has."

He praised Pakistan's role in targeting ISIS-K operatives and highlighted specific instances of cooperation. "Through a phenomenal partnership with Pakistan, they have gone after ISIS Khorasan, killing dozens of them. Through a relationship we have with them providing intelligence, they have captured at least five ISIS Khorasan high value individuals."

Kurilla also said that Pakistan had extradited ISIS-K terrorist Mohammad Sharifullah, accused of being involved in the 2021 Abbey Gate bombing at Kabul airport that killed 13 US service members and around 160 Afghan civilians. "I was the first person Pakistan’s then Chief of Army Staff Asim Munir had called and had said, ‘I've caught him. I'm willing to extradite him back to the United States. Please tell the Secretary of Defence and the President,’" Kurilla said.

"So we are seeing Pakistan, with limited intelligence that we're providing them, go after them, using their means to do that, and we're seeing an effect on ISIS-K," the US general said. He maintained that the ISIS-K operatives are mostly active near the Afghan-Pakistan border and that the Taliban, though hostile to ISIS-K, has not eliminated them entirely.

"ISIS Khorasan (ISIS-K) is perhaps one of the most active in trying to do external plots globally, to include against the homeland. The Taliban is going after ISIS K — they hate each other, and have pushed a lot of them into the tribal areas on the Afghan-Pakistan border,” he told the committee.