Relief felt by war’s winners and losers in Kabul
The Afghanistan war ended with an odd unity between sworn enemies — the Taliban and the Americans
Bone-tired like everyone else in Kabul, Taliban fighters spent the last moments of the 20-year Afghanistan war watching the night skies for the flares that would signal the United States was gone. From afar, U.S. generals watched video screens with the same anticipation.
Relief washed over the war’s winners and the losers when the final U.S. plane took off.
For those in between and left behind — possibly a majority of the allied Afghans who sought U.S. clearance to escape — fear spread about what comes next, given the Taliban’s history of ruthlessness and repression of women. And for thousands of U.S. officials and volunteers working around the world to place Afghan refugees, there is still no rest.
As witnessed by the Associated Press in Kabul and as told by people the AP interviewed from all sides, the war ended with enemies for two decades thrust into a bizarre collaboration, joined in a common goal — the Taliban and the United States were united in wanting the United States out. They wanted, too, to avoid another deadly terrorist attack.
Both sides had a stake in making the last 24 hours work.
In that stretch, the Americans worried that extremists would take aim at the hulking transport planes as they lifted off with the last U.S. troops and officials. Instead, in the green tint of night-vision goggles, the Americans looked down to goodbye waves from Taliban fighters on the tarmac.
The Taliban had worried that the Americans would rig the airport with mines. Instead, the Americans left them with two useful firetrucks and functional front-end loaders along with a bleak panorama of self-sabotaged U.S. military machinery.
After several sleepless nights from the unrelenting thunder of U.S. evacuation flights overhead, Hemad Sherzad joined his fellow Taliban fighters in celebration from his post at the airport.
“We cried for almost an hour out of happiness,” Sherzad told AP. In the Pentagon operations center just outside Washington at the same time, you could hear a pin drop as the last C-17 took off. You could also hear sighs of relief from the top military officials in the room, even through COVID19 masks. President Joe Biden, determined to end the war and facing widespread criticism for his handling of the withdrawal, got the word from his national security adviser during a meeting with aides.
“I refused to send another generation of America’s sons and daughters to fight a war that should have ended long ago,” he said.
Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was among those watching at the Pentagon. “All of us are conflicted with feelings of pain and anger, sorrow and sadness,” he said later, “combined with pride and resilience.”
At the end, fewer than 1,000 troops remained. Five C-17 planes came in darkness to take them out, with crews specially trained to fly into and out of airfields at night without air traffic control.
From Scott Air Force Base in Illinois, Gen. Jacqueline Van Ovost, commander of Air Mobility Command, watched on video screens as the aircraft filled and lined up for takeoff. An iconic image showed Maj. Gen. Christopher Donahue, commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, carrying his M-4 rifle as he walked into a C-17 and into history as the last of the U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan.
One minute to midnight, the last of the five took off. The message “MAF Safe,” meaning the Mobility Air Forces were gone from Kabul air space and in safe skies, soon followed. And the American generals relaxed.