This is on America’s conscience! Shocking, unreal scenes! /JYoUrMgUKs These have to be the defining images of this war. The intervention, which began in the wake of the Septemattacks on the US, is currently being wound down by Washington and allied forces, with the withdrawal of foreign troops. The harrowing footage from the runway was widely described on social media as the “defining image” of the US-led incursion into Afghanistan. “It seemed as though airport security, airline and airport staff simply melted away, and it really was a free-for-all.” ‘Shocking, unreal scenes’ “That caused a surge of people moving toward the airport,” he said. In other footage, US soldiers managing the airport appeared to fire warning shots in the air as crowds surged.ĭozens of others could be seen in videos attempting to scale a staircase and board a plane, with some people hanging off the railings.Īl Jazeera’s Rob McBride, reporting from Kabul, said the “chaotic and desperate scenes” began to unfold after it became clear the Afghan government had collapsed and the Taliban was assuming control of Kabul. Hours earlier, five people were killed as chaos broke out in the terminals of Hamid Karzai International Airport and on the tarmac after the Taliban took control of Afghanistan’s capital. One video showed several people climbing onto the plane as it progressed down the airport’s runway, some of whom appeared to be hanging off its moving front wheel.Īnother horrifying clip appeared to show at least two people falling from the sky after the plane has taken off. Videos shared widely on social media on Monday showed hundreds of people running alongside a US military jet as it prepared to depart Kabul airport. Extraordinary footage of Afghans clinging on to a United States Air Force plane in a desperate bid to flee the country have been described as the “defining images” of the decades-long military intervention by Western powers.