TEHRAN- The Iranian president’s special envoy on Afghanistan affairs, Hassan Kazemi Qomi, has underlined that Americans occupied Afghanistan for 20 years and drove it toward oblivion by destroying all its infrastructure.

Kazemi Qomi made the comments during an interview the national TV when asked about the impacts of the American troops' 20-year presence in Afghanistan. 

August 15 marked the first anniversary of the capture of the capital Kabul by the Taliban, which forced the American military forces and diplomats flee the country in a scandalous and hurried way. 

Kazemi Qomi added that the U.S. spy services are still operating in Afghanistan, and they continue to cause harm under a variety of circumstances. 

“The Americans occupied that country for 20 years and pushed it towards destruction and extinction of its infrastructures," he lamented.

The special envoy went on to highlight that “they resorted to mass murder of civilians and brought to power an incompetent government. Besides financial corruption in that government, the Americans did not even permit a professional and strong army take shape in Afghanistan.”

The official emphasized that this indicates how reliant the government and army were on Americans to establish their legitimacy.

Kazemi Qomi underlined, for instance, that American actions were a major source of insecurity in Afghanistan.

For example, he said, one was often hearing that bomb explosions hitting wedding ceremonies. 

"They opened the ground for the admission of the terrorist groups into Afghanistan and that was clearly one of the terrible deeds of the Americans over those 20 years."

He continued by saying that Americans were also performing very poorly in cultural and social spheres.

“In a country with a religious and traditional society, they kept on promoting quite a liberal culture. Of course a broad majority in the society did not yield to such moves. They also promoted the drug abuse secretly. When the Americans arrived narcotic drugs production in Afghanistan was around 200 tons, which was of course 2,000 tons a year before that. But during the Americans’ presence it reached 10,000 tons,” he remarked.

Kazemi Qomi concluded that despite the fact that the puppy flower plantation had always been high and the number of drug users had historically been quite low, Afghanistan was now home to a sizable community of drug addicts. However, over those 20 years, around 10% of Afghans were drug user, he stated.