- The last American soldier left
Afghanistan on Monday, marking the end to the 20-year US campaign. Taliban fighters celebrated with gunfire inKabul 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The US has officially withdrawn from Afghanistan, with its last jet taking off from the country Monday night.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:
-Tony Brown (@tonyprod77) August 31, 2021
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
-Nabih (@nabihbulos) August 30, 2021
He also shared a video of Taliban fighters entering a hangar and looking at equipment the US military had left behind:
-Nabih (@nabihbulos) August 30, 2021
The US permanently disabled more than 150 vehicles and aircraft upon departure so they could be "never used again," a US general said Monday.