Two weeks of chaos: a timeline of the U.S. pullout of Afghanistan
Thousands of people rushed to Kabul’s airport after the government’s collapse. They left behind loved ones and carried only their most precious belongings. The crush of people trying to escape underscored the fears of Taliban rule upending life, especially for young Afghans who had never lived under its regime.
Desperation drove some people to cling to the wings of airplanes as they took off. Fada Mohammad, a young dentist, fell to his death on Aug. 16. His remains were found on a rooftop four miles from the airport. A teenage soccer player also died after plummeting from a U.S. aircraft.
The rush to flee Kabul was made worse because “down to the final days of collapse, people were in denial,” said Anthony H. Cordesman, a former U.S. military adviser on Afghanistan and the emeritus chair in strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The Biden administration’s earlier decision to vacate Bagram air base, 35 miles north of Kabul, only made it harder for Afghans to escape.
Kabul’s airport, added Cordesman, “was from the start a terrible place to get to. The roads are very narrow, it’s not easy to secure. It’s very, very hard once people actually cram in there to manage access.”
