WASHINGTON: Former Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani said he would “fight to the death” the night before he fled Afghanistan as the Taliban closed in on Kabul, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told an Afghan television channel. “What he told me in that conversation the night before he fled is that, as he put it, he was prepared to fight to the death,” Blinken said when asked by TOLO News in Doha whether US had helped him flee the country.” In less than 24 hours, he’d left Afghanistan. So no, I certainly didn’t know about it, and we certainly did nothing to facilitate it,” he said in the interview with TOLO’s correspondent Lotfullah Najafizada, according to a transcript released by the US State Department on Wednesday. Meanwhile, Ghani, who fled to the UAE as the Taliban took control of Afghanistan on August 15, issued a statement apologizing for ‘abandoning’ Afghan citizens and said he acted on the advice of the palace security. He also dismissed rumours of taking off with million of dollars.