Chaos as thousands flee Afghanistan after Taliban takeover

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KABUL – Thousands packed into the Afghan capital's airdrome connected Monday, rushing the tarmac and pushing onto planes successful hopeless attempts to fly the state aft the Taliban overthrew the Western-backed government. U.S. soldiers fired informing shots arsenic they struggled to negociate the chaotic evacuation.

The Taliban swept into Kabul connected Sunday aft President Ashraf Ghani fled the country, bringing a stunning extremity to a two-decade run successful which the U.S. and its allies had tried to alteration Afghanistan. The country's Western-trained information forces collapsed oregon fled successful the look of an insurgent violative that tore done the state successful conscionable implicit a week, up of the planned withdrawal of the past U.S. troops astatine the extremity of the month.

In the capital, a tense calm acceptable in, with astir radical hiding successful their homes arsenic the Taliban deployed fighters astatine large intersections. There were scattered reports of looting and equipped men knocking connected doors and gates, and determination was little postulation than accustomed connected eerily quiescent streets. Fighters could beryllium seen searching vehicles astatine 1 of the city’s main squares.

Many fearfulness chaos, aft the Taliban freed thousands of prisoners and the constabulary simply melted away, oregon a instrumentality to the benignant of brutal regularisation the Taliban imposed erstwhile it was past successful power.

Wahidullah Qadiri, a Kabul resident, said helium hoped for bid aft decades of warfare that person claimed the lives of 2 of his brothers and a cousin.

“We haven’t seen thing but catastrophes and fighting, truthful we ever unrecorded with anticipation for a long-lasting peace,” helium said.

Thousands of others doubted bid would travel and raced to Kabul's planetary airport. Videos circulating connected societal media showed hundreds of radical moving crossed the tarmac arsenic U.S. soldiers fired informing shots successful the air. One showed a assemblage pushing and shoving its mode up a staircase, trying to committee a plane, with immoderate radical hanging disconnected the railings.

Massouma Tajik, a 22-year-old information analyst, described scenes of panic astatine the airport, wherever she was hoping to committee an evacuation flight.

After waiting six hours, she heard shots from outside, wherever a assemblage of men and women were trying to ascent aboard a plane. She said U.S. troops sprayed state and fired into the aerial to disperse the crowds aft radical scaled the walls and swarmed onto the tarmac. Gunfire could beryllium heard successful the dependable messages she sent to The Associated Press.

The U.S. Embassy has been evacuated and the American emblem lowered, with diplomats relocating to the airdrome to assistance with the evacuation. Other Western countries person besides closed their missions and are flying retired unit and nationals.

By morning, Afghanistan's Civil Aviation Authority issued an advisory saying the “civilian side” of the airdrome had been “closed until further notice” and that the subject controlled the airspace.

The velocity of the Taliban violative done the state appears to have stunned U.S. officials. Just days earlier the insurgents entered Kabul with small if immoderate resistance, a U.S. subject appraisal predicted it could instrumentality months for the superior to fall.

The rout threatened to erase 20 years of Western efforts to remake Afghanistan that saw more than 3,500 U.S. and allied troops killed arsenic good arsenic tens of thousands of Afghans. The archetypal penetration drove the Taliban from powerfulness and scattered al-Qaida, which had planned the 9/11 attacks portion being sheltered successful Afghanistan. Many had hoped the Western-backed Afghan authorities would usher successful a caller epoch of bid and respect for quality rights.

As the U.S. mislaid absorption connected Afghanistan during the Iraq war, the Taliban yet regrouped. The militants captured overmuch of the Afghan countryside successful caller years and past swept into cities arsenic U.S. forces prepared to retreat up of an Aug. 31 deadline.

Under the Taliban, which ruled successful accordance with a harsh mentation of Islamic law, women were mostly confined to their homes and suspected criminals faced amputation oregon nationalist execution. The insurgents person sought to task greater moderation successful caller years, but many Afghans stay skeptical.

Suhail Shaheen, a Taliban spokesman, tweeted that fighters had been instructed not to participate immoderate location without support and to support “life, spot and honor.” The Taliban person besides said they volition enactment retired of the upscale diplomatic 4th lodging the U.S. Embassy analyzable and the posh villas of U.S.-allied erstwhile warlords who person fled the state oregon gone into hiding.

“The Taliban is seeking to signifier the communicative that their accession to powerfulness is morganatic — a connection for some wrong Afghanistan and beyond its borders,” the Texas-based backstage quality steadfast Stratfor wrote.

“The velocity of the Taliban’s last beforehand suggests little subject dominance than effectual governmental insurgency coupled with an incohesive Afghan governmental strategy and information unit struggling with flagging morale."

When the Taliban past seized Kabul successful 1996, it had been heavy damaged successful the civilian warfare that broke retired among rival warlords aft the Soviet withdrawal 7 years earlier. The metropolis was past location to astir a cardinal people, astir traveling connected dusty roads by bicycle oregon aging taxi.

Today Kabul is simply a built-up metropolis location to 5 cardinal radical wherever luxury vehicles and SUVs conflict to propulsion done endemic postulation jams. Many of the younger Taliban fighters hail from agrarian areas without energy oregon moving water, and are getting their archetypal glimpse of the modern city.

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Faiez reported from Istanbul, Krauss from Jerusalem and Gannon from Guelph, Canada. Associated Press writers Jon Gambrell successful Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Samya Kullab successful Baghdad contributed.

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