Troops fly out of Kabul as longest war ends

The United States has completed its withdrawal from Afghanistan, ending America’s longest war and closing a chapter in military history likely to be remembered for colossal failures, unfulfilled promises and a frantic final exit.

Hours ahead of President Joe Biden’s deadline today for shutting down a final airlift, and thus ending the US war, air force transport planes carried a remaining contingent of troops from Kabul airport.

Thousands of troops had spent a harrowing two weeks protecting the hurried and risky airlift of tens of thousands of Afghans, Americans and others seeking to escape a country once again ruled by Taliban militants.

Announcing the end of the evacuation and war effort, Gen Frank McKenzie, head of US Central Command, said the last planes took off from Kabul Airport at 3.29pm Washington time, or one minute before midnight in Kabul.

The airport had become a US-controlled island, a last stand in a 20-year war that claimed more than 2,400 American lives.

The closing hours of the evacuation were marked by extraordinary drama. American troops faced the daunting task of getting final evacuees on to planes while also getting themselves and some of their equipment out, even as they monitored repeated threats – and at least two actual attacks – by the Islamic State group’s Afghanistan affiliate. A suicide bombing on August 26 killed 13 American service members and some 169 Afghans.

Mr Biden now faces condemnation, not so much for ending the war as for his handling of a final evacuation that unfolded in chaos.