Commercial flights at Hamid Karzai International Airport have been canceled, but footage there showed frenzied crowds trying to force their way onto any airplane leaving the city late on Sunday night and Monday morning — some even hanging to the sides of military aircraft with their bare hands as the planes taxied the runway.
The US military is guarding a section of the airport, but its embassy in Kabul warned American citizens and Afghans not to travel there unless explicitly told to do so. At one point on Monday the US was forced to temporarily suspend its air operations, a US defense official told CNN, while troops tried to clear the airfield.
Afghans now await reports of what kind of regime they will live under. Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen told CNN on Sunday that an announcement about the make-up of a new government will take place “as soon as possible,” but it would be “premature” now to name who will be included.
The US defense secretary has meanwhile approved the deployment of 1,000 more American troops into the country due to the deteriorating security situation, a defense official told CNN, upping the number of troops in the country to 6,000. All US embassy staff have been evacuated and were at the airport on Sunday night, the State Department said.
Astonishing footage from the site showed people trying to board aircraft as they took off and landed. Several C-17 transport planes have been seen leaving, while the Turkish government said a flight it organized had departed. In the UK, the first flight carrying British nationals and embassy staff arrived home on Sunday night.
Witnesses CNN has spoken with at the airport say they have heard many gunshots fired throughout the day on Monday. It’s unclear if the shots were fired at people or just into the air to disperse crowds, or by whom, the witnesses said.
One of the witnesses CNN spoke with is hoping to get on a flight out of Afghanistan, fearing persecution at the hands of the Taliban when the Americans leave. At one point, the witness managed to get inside the airport, where they saw US soldiers telling Afghans to “stay back.”
“The US need to take us with them. Once they’re gone we will be left behind forever,” the witness said.
US troops kill two armed men at airport
Amid scenes of disarray at the airport, US forces shot and killed two armed men Monday after they fired on American forces, according to a US defense official.
The official would only say the men were armed and the US has not verified they were Taliban, but a witness told CNN the men shot and killed by US forces were Taliban fighters. The witness also said a third fighter was injured in the confrontation. The US for now believes it was an isolated incident, the official said.
According to the witness, the Taliban fighters arrived while multiple high-profile foreign and Afghan vehicles were trying to enter the airport through a specific entrance. The witness said there was confusion at the scene and Taliban fighters shot into the air to try to clear the gate.
According to the witness, the US military fired back, hitting what they said were three Taliban fighters, killing two and injuring the other.
CNN has been unable to independently verify the three men were members of the Taliban.
Additionally, the US defense official said, the military has a report that one US troop was injured by a gunshot in another incident at the airport but the circumstances have not been confirmed.
Militants visible across Kabul
Elsewhere in Kabul, where Afghans awoke to Taliban control for the first time in two decades on Monday, the reality of the new regime is beginning to set in.
The militants are visible at several locations across the capital, and some of the men have started painting over images of uncovered women outside several beauty salons.
CNN asked Taliban fighters whether they will ban smoking or make men grow their beards, as they did during their previous five-year rule. The fighters said nothing will be implemented drastically or immediately, but that Afghans are Muslim people and want to live under Muslim law.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid tweeted on Monday that the group is nearing “full control” of the Afghan capital. According to Mujahid, the Taliban have arrested most of the people who were involved in violence in the capital after its takeover of the city.
He also reiterated the Taliban promise that the group would not go from door to door in search of former government officials.
US President Joe Biden will address the American people on Afghanistan Monday afternoon, he confirmed on Twitter. The crisis is already threatening to engulf Biden’s young presidency, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken said to CNN on Sunday that the administration had miscalculated how rapidly Kabul would fall.
“The fact of the matter is we’ve seen that that force has been unable to defend the country,” Blinken told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union,” referring to Afghanistan’s national security forces. “And that has happened more quickly than we anticipated.”
There are questions, too, among the US’ allies about the nature of their withdrawal of troops from the country, which precipitated the Taliban’s surge.
The UK’s Defense Secretary, Ben Wallace, fought back tears in an interview Monday, admitting that “some people won’t get back” from the country. “It’s sad that the West has done what it’s done,” he said.
CNN’s Tim Lister, Vasco Cotovio, Nicky Robertson and Barbara Starr contributed reporting.