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Videos show Taliban taking over Kabul airport and celebrating with gunfire after the US left Afghanistan

Sinéad Baker   

Videos show Taliban taking over Kabul airport and celebrating with gunfire after the US left Afghanistan
International1 min read
  • The last American soldier left Afghanistan on Monday, marking the end to the 20-year US campaign.
  • Taliban fighters celebrated with gunfire in Kabul and took control of the city's airport.
  • One video shows them entering a hangar with equipment the US military left behind.

The US has officially withdrawn from Afghanistan, with its last jet taking off from the country Monday night.

Videos showed fighters celebrating the US exit with gunfire and seizing Kabul's airport, where thousands of Afghans desperately converged after the Taliban militants took over the country.

BBC News broadcast footage of the gunfire, with its chief international correspondent, Lyse Doucet, pointing to what she said was celebratory gunfire, including illuminated tracer rounds. She said it was the "eruption of celebratory gunfire by Taliban supporters in the city of Kabul."

Watch the footage here:

Agence France-Presse reported that the Taliban "joyously fired guns into the air" on Tuesday to celebrate the US departure.

Reuters reported that the Taliban took control of the airport before dawn on Tuesday and that celebratory gunfire could be heard across Kabul.

Nabih Bulos, the Middle East bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times, shared footage of Taliban fighters in the part of Kabul airport that had been controlled by the US military.

He also shared a video of Taliban fighters entering a hangar and looking at equipment the US military had left behind:

The US permanently disabled more than 150 vehicles and aircraft upon departure so they could be "never used again," a US general said Monday.

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