Ex-Afghan president: Allowing US to drop bomb ‘treason’

Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan’s previous president, said Saturday that the country’s current President Ashraf Ghani committed “treason” if he gave the U.S. permission to drop a massive bomb on ISIS tunnels this week.

“How could you permit Americans to bomb your country with a device equal to an atom bomb?” Karzai said, according to Reuters. “If the government has permitted them to do this, that was wrong and it has committed a national treason.”

The U.S. military dropped a Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) bomb, known as the “mother of all bombs,” on ISIS tunnels located near Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan on Thursday.

{mosads}The Afghan and U.S. militaries coordinated for the operation, the president of Afghanistan’s office reportedly said. 

Ghani’s office responded to Karzai’s claims by saying Afghanistan “is a country of free speech” and that “every Afghan has the right to speak their mind.” 

Speaking in Kabul on Saturday, Karzai called the bomb “a violation” of Afghanistan’s “sovereignty.”

“This bomb wasn’t only a violation of our sovereignty and a disrespect to our soil and environment, but will have bad effects for years,” he said.