Military evacuation of diplomats, citizens resume at Kabul airport

A Western official at the airport told Reuters that the crowd at the airport had thinned out, a day after US troops fired gunshots into the sky to disperse the crowd.

Military flights in Afghanistan resumed evacuation of diplomats and citizens on Tuesday as the runway at Kabul airport was cleared of people trying to flee the country as the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan,  Reuters reported. 

A Western official at the airport told Reuters that the crowd at the airport had thinned out, a day after US troops fired gunshots into the sky to disperse the crowd. Five deaths were reported, though the reason for the victims’ deaths was unclear.

Advertisement

By the afternoon, at least 12 military flights had taken off, a diplomat at the airport told Reuters. 

A video circulated on Monday showed hundreds of desperate Afghans trying to clamber onto a U.S. military plane as it was about to take off.

On Sunday US troops were flown into Kabul to manage the crowd at the airport. President Joe Biden had already announced his decision to withdraw US troops from the country, a decision that was heavily criticized by many.

On Tuesday Biden defended his decision to withdraw the troops saying that he learned the hard way that there was never a good time to withdraw U.S. forces. 

The war between Afghanistan and the US is considered one of the biggest wars in world history. According to Biden, the war had cost more than $1 trillion in 20 years. On Sunday Taliban seized control of the nation following which Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled the country.