Gul Ahmad Rasooli’s phone rang the day the Afghan government collapsed.
The now-former governor of the province of Zabul — a remote, mountainous southern Afghan province bordering Kandahar — had taken refuge in the capital, Kabul, as the security climate in Afghanistan unravelled over the summer.
The Taliban had overrun Qalat, the provincial capital, and Rasooli had escaped with his life.
The call was from his son, an Afghan special forces soldier assigned to the elite protection detail around Ashraf Ghani, the president of the western-backed regime.
It was not a nation, it can never be saved. Islam and tribalism are a toxic mix and we were fed a 20 year lie.
