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

August 31, 2021

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

Taliban fighters with guns outside Kabul airport — Taliban Badri special force fighters arrive at the airport in Kabul on August 31, 2021, after the US has pulled all its troops out of the country.
WAKIL KOHSAR/AFP via Getty Images

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The US has officially withdrawn from Afghanistan, with its last jet taking off from the country on Monday night.

Videos showed Taliban fighters celebrating the US exit with gunfire, and seizing Kabul's airport, where thousands of Afghans had desperately tried to flee after they took over the country.

BBC News broadcast footage of the gunfire, with Chief International Correspondent Lyse Doucet saying she could hear celebratory tracer fire and guns going off. 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 there was celabratory gunfire 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.