Evacuees made their way to Hamid Karzai International airport where US Air Force transport aircraft flew them out of the country. The US military over the past two weeks was forced into an awkward truce with its former enemy to allow evacuations of US citizens, allied Afghan civilians and citizens from other countries. In just a few months a resurgent Taliban captured almost all of the country, including the capital Kabul by 15 August. After the USA and its allies began pulling troops from the country earlier this year, the Afghan army started to rapidly disintegrate. Yet, despite billions of dollars in assistance and two decades of training by Western militaries, the Afghan government and its army were racked with corruption, in-fighting and incompetence. The Taliban were vanquished from the country relatively quickly and replaced by a democratically elected Afghan government. The USA and a coalition of NATO allies invaded Afghanistan just weeks after Al Qaeda, hosted by the ruling Taliban at the time, carried out attacks on the World Trade Center towers and Pentagon on 11 September 2001. The last two US citizens on the ground were Major General Chris Donahue, commander of the US Army’s 82nd Airborne Division, and Charge d’Affaires Ross Wilson, the senior diplomat in Afghanistan. The Pentagon says its aircraft evacuated 79,000 civilians. US and coalition aircraft evacuated more than 123,000 civilians over an 18-day period that started on 14 August. The departure of the last US citizens concluded the largest non-combatant air evacuation by the US Department of Defense in its history. Aircraft should adhere to standard reporting procedures on CTAF 125.2.” “Aircraft operating into, out of, or through Kabul FIR and landing OAKB should use extreme caution. “No air traffic control or airport services are available,” the notice says. The last US Air Force C-17 left Hamid Karzai airport one minute before midnight on 30 August
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