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Afghan Officials Admit Driving Luxury Car in London As Country Fell to Taliban

Former National Security Adviser Hamdullah Mohib told VICE World News that it was indeed him and Peace Minister Sadat Naderi driving a red Bentley around West London.
​Hamdullah Mohib and Sadat Naderi driving through London.
Hamdullah Mohib and Sadat Naderi driving through London. Photo: Sulaiman Hakemy

Two former Afghan ministers have admitted they were driving a luxury car through one of London’s most expensive neighbourhoods last July as the country disintegrated under a Taliban onslaught.

Representatives of the then Peace Minister Sadat Naderi and National Security Adviser Hamdullah Mohib admitted to VICE World News that it was indeed the pair driving a red Bentley in London’s high-end Marylebone neighbourhood, confirming the work of open-source researchers who determined a photo that surfaced on social media had been taken in mid to late July.

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Around that time, the Taliban had recently taken six smaller provincial capitals and were besieging the second largest city of Kandahar to the extent that the US had begun additional airstrikes in a last-ditch attempt to prevent the last major cities from falling.  

“The two were at a series of important meetings in London as part of their duties,” a spokesperson for Mohib told VICE World News.  

In a separate statement to UK newspaper The Sun, Naderi admitted that the car belongs to him, but denied any wrongdoing. “The motor seen in the picture is also my personal car, which I bought from my personal income,” he said. “My family have never thought about anything but the interests of the nation and the dignity and pride of Afghanistan in any part of time.”

“People have made many allegations but Mister Mohib has stolen nothing in his time serving Afghanistan,” Mohib’s spokesperson added to VICE World News. “These are false allegations and he works very hard to free his country from the Taliban.”

After allegations that the fleeing government of former President Ashraf Ghani removed hundreds of millions of dollars in cash from the country in the final days of the pro-American regime, the optics of top officials riding in expensive cars abroad will do little to reinstall trust in Afghan officials.