Fighting terrorism a tool for U.S. to implement hegemony: Afghan expert

Fighting terrorism has been a tool used by the United States to strengthen its hegemony, an Afghan scholar has told Xinhua in an exclusive interview.

"The United States definition of terrorism depends on Washington's interests. The U.S. has been using terrorism as a tool to invade and defeat free nations to ensure its interests," said Najibullah Jami, an Afghan political expert and Kabul University professor.

In the wake of the terror attacks on New York and Washington on Sept. 11, 2001, the United States accused the al-Qaida network of organizing the deadly attacks and led a military coalition to invade Afghanistan in October 2001 to overthrow the Taliban government, which allegedly sheltered the then leader of the terror network Osama Bin Laden.

In late August 2021, the U.S. forces conducted a hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan with a military defeat, leaving the war-torn country in extreme poverty and deep pains. Public data showed that more than 50,000 Afghan civilians and nearly 70,000 Afghan security personnel reportedly had been killed during the two-decade-long U.S. occupation of Afghanistan.

Jami said America's "anti-terrorism" war has reportedly caused the number of terrorist organizations in Afghanistan to exceed 20 today.

"Americans invaded Afghanistan with slogans to fight terror, check drug production and trafficking and rebuild the country but the claims have proved counter-productive as drug production and trafficking has increased manifold and the war-torn country has also been suffering from extreme poverty," the analyst said.

Giving examples of the destructive role of Washington's military intervention under the pretext of fighting terrorism in certain countries, the expert said, "The outcome of the U.S. war in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Syria, and in Libya is clear to everyone."

"We Afghans have no tangible economic development from the presence of U.S. military or economic prosperity over the past 20 years. We import our electricity from Tajikistan, we don't have enough food. Even in Kabul, we don't have clean drinking water," he said.

According to the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction set up by the U.S. Congress, annual per capita income in the Asian country declined from 650 U.S. dollars in 2012 to 500 dollars in 2020.