Late Monday, the US completed its withdrawal from Afghanistan, bringing an end to America’s longest war and closing a chapter in military history that will be remembered for colossal failures, unfulfilled promises, and a frantic final exit that claimed the lives of over 180 Afghans and 13 US service members, some of whom were barely old enough to remember the war.
President Joe Biden stated that America’s 20-year military engagement in Afghanistan had come to an end, hours after the US evacuated all of its troops from the war-torn country.
“Our 20-year military involvement in Afghanistan has come to an end,” he remarked, applauding the armed troops for completing the perilous retrograde from Afghanistan on time, in the early hours of Tuesday (August 31), with no further American casualties.
Previously, while proclaiming the end of the evacuation and combat effort, The last planes took off from Kabul airport at 3:29 p.m. Washington time, or one minute before midnight in Kabul, according to Gen. Frank McKenzie, head of US Central Command.
Taliban proclaim ‘full independence’
The Taliban declared Afghanistan’s “complete independence” when the final American troops left after a 20-year conflict.
“American soldiers left the Kabul airport, and our nation got its entire independence,” Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid said early Tuesday. The United States reported that its final forces departed ahead of a deadline set for Tuesday, bringing an end to America’s longest war and a frenetic two-week evacuation campaign. Earlier this month, the Taliban took control of the majority of the country in a few of days.
Taliban fighters blasted their weapons into the air after watching the last US planes leave into the night sky about midnight Monday, celebrating triumph after a 20-year insurgency in Afghanistan that pushed the world’s most powerful force out of one of the poorest countries on the planet.
The airport had been turned into a US-controlled island, the final stand in a 20-year battle that had lost the lives of over 2,400 Americans.
The evacuation’s final hours were filled with incredible drama. Even as they monitored numerous threats — and at least two actual attacks — by the Islamic State group’s Afghanistan offshoot, American troops had the difficult chore of putting final evacuees onto flights while also getting themselves and some of their equipment out. On Aug. 26, a suicide bomber murdered 13 American service personnel and 169 Afghans.
The final pullout fulfilled Biden’s promise to stop a “forever war” that began in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York, Washington, and rural Pennsylvania, which killed almost 3,000 people. His decision, announced in April, indicated a growing public dissatisfaction with the Afghan conflict. He is now being chastised at home and abroad, not so much for ending the war as for his conduct of the final evacuation, which devolved into chaos and cast doubt on US trustworthiness.
The Chenab Times News Desk