Taliban control now-quiet Kabul airport after US withdrawal

Kabul

The Taliban were in full control of Kabul’s internationalairport on Tuesday, after the last U.S. plane left its runway, marking the endof America’s longest war and leaving behind a quiet airfield and Afghansoutside it still hoping to flee the insurgents’ rule.

Vehicles raced back and forth along the Hamid KarzaiInternational Airport’s sole runway on the northern, military side of theairfield. Before dawn broke, heavily armed Taliban fighters walked throughhangars, passing some of the seven CH-46 helicopters the State Department usedin its evacuations before rendering them unflyable.

Taliban leaders later symbolically walked across the runway,marking their victory while flanked by fighters of the insurgents’ elite Badriunit.

“The world should have learned its lesson and this is theenjoyable moment of victory,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in alivestream posted by a militant.

Later speaking to Al-Jazeera Arabic on the airport’s tarmac,Mujahid rejected having a caretaker government and insisted that Kabul remainedsafe.

“There will be security in Kabul and people should not beconcerned,” he said.

Taliban fighters draped their white flags over barriers atthe airport as others guarded the civilian side of the airfield. Inside theterminal, several dozen suitcases and pieces of luggage were left strewn acrossthe floor, apparently left behind in the chaos. Clothes and shoes also werescattered. A poster of Ahmad Shah Massoud, the famed anti-Taliban fighter, hadbeen destroyed.

The airport had seen chaotic and deadly scenes since theTaliban blitzed across Afghanistan and took Kabul on Aug. 15. Thousands ofAfghans besieged the airport, some falling to their death after desperatelyhanging onto the side of an American C-17 military cargo jet. Last week, anIslamic State suicide attack at an airport gate killed at least 169 Afghans and13 U.S. service members.

But on Tuesday, after a night that saw the Taliban firetriumphantly into the air, guards now blearily on duty kept out the curious andthose still somehow hoping to catch a flight out.

“After 20 years we have defeated the Americans,” saidMohammad Islam, a Taliban guard at the airport from Logar province, cradling aKalashnikov rifle. “They have left and now our country is free.”

“It’s clear what we want. We want Shariah (Islamic law),peace and stability,” he added.