Aug 31, 2021: Taliban fighters took control of the airport just before sunrise on Tuesday after the withdrawal of the last US troops from Afghanistan, sparking celebrations across Kabul.
The mood was one of jubilation from Afghanistan’s new rulers, marking their return to power 20 years after the first Taliban regime was ousted by the 2001 US military invasion. Footage from inside the city showed gunfire lighting up the night sky as Taliban fighters fired into air.
“The last five aircraft have left, it’s over!” said Hemad Sherzad, a Taliban fighter stationed at Kabul’s international airport. “I cannot express my happiness in words … Our 20 years of sacrifice worked.”
“The world should have learned their lesson and this is the enjoyable moment of victory,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a livestream posted by a militant.
Taliban spokesman says Afghanistan has ‘gained complete independence’ as fighters entered hangars occupied by US forces hours earlier.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid wrote on Twitter, “Thus our country became completely independent and sovereign.”
Shortly after the spokesman’s comments on social media, at about 1:11 a.m. local time, Taliban members opened fire to celebrate, which lasted about an hour.
Following the gunfire, Mujahid said in a separate tweet that “the gunshots heard in Kabul are as a result of celebratory firing, the Kabul residents should not worry, we are trying to control it.”
As the last US military transport aircraft took off from the Kabul airport on Monday night, marking the end of two decades of American troops in Afghanistan, celebratory gunfire rang out the capital as Taliban fighters revelled in the end of America’s longest war.
Celebratory gunfire from #Taliban fighters shooting tracer rounds into #Kabul's night sky after #US withdrawal. pic.twitter.com/4dhrHz7CNw
— Nabih (@nabihbulos) August 30, 2021
Just two weeks earlier, Taliban fighters had taken Kabul and toppled the government without force as President Ashraf Ghani fled the country. It was a rise to power so swift that it had taken the US and even Taliban leadership by surprise.
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Taliban: Afghanistan now ‘a free and sovereign’ nation
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