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WE'RE IN CHARGE NOW
Chilling picture shows Taliban extremists posing in ex-British HQ as the West leaves Afghanistan in their hands
TALIBAN zealots pose with their weapons yesterday — telling the world they now rule Afghanistan.
The chillingly symbolic snap was taken in the former British police training HQ in Kabul.
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On the table were a bobby’s helmet and a state trooper’s hat that had been left as gifts to police trainees by their British and American mentors.
Last night leaked US files appeared to blame Britain for the death of 13 of its soldiers in a suicide blast at Kabul airport’s Abbey Gate on Thursday.
Security sources said they begged to shut down Abbey Gate but Britain wanted it kept open to continue its evacuation campaign.
Six hours later a suicide bomber killed 170 people and 13 US soldiers. The MoD declined to comment.
The last Allied troops left in time to beat today’s August 31 Taliban deadline to withdraw from the war-torn country.
The Taliban celebrated the US exit by firing weapons and fireworks into the skies above Kabul after the last American soldier was pictured leaving the country.
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Photos from today show Taliban fighters inside the Kabul airport inspecting equipment including Chinook helicopters that were left behind by the US military.
Afghanistan's future and that of its desperate population — including many hundred Brits — lies in the militia’s hands.
In the final hours, the US launched an airstrike on a suspected suicide bomber killing ten members of the same family.
Ex-British Army officer Colonel Richard Kemp said that for 20 years the West had stopped terrorist attacks being launched from Afghanistan.
But President Biden’s withdrawal of forces from the country “betrayed all the efforts made by UK and US troops”.
He said: “It makes the threat from Afghanistan the greatest it’s ever been.”
It comes as:
- Shocking video shows Taliban 'flying captured $6m US Black Hawk helicopter on patrol over Afghan city'
- Dominic Raab slams 'untrue' US claim that UK was to blame for making Kabul death toll worse
- Taliban shoots guns and fireworks to celebrate US retreat from Afghanistan
- Pen Farthing feels 'no joy just guilt' after fleeing Afghanistan without staff
The Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan is complete as the last US troops at Kabul airport beat their final retreat today.
The last US take-off ends a trillion-dollar, 20-year war that has cost hundreds of thousands of lives and finishes as it began, with the Taliban in power.
The hardline religious zealots have already been flexing their muscles, banning co-education and welcoming wanted terrorists to meetings in the capital.
And as the Taliban united, the allies were divided in retreat.
Meanwhile, it has emerged that ten family members including six children were killed in a US drone strike on a vehicle in Kabul.
The Americans were targeting a suspected IS suicide bomber in a residential area of Afghanistan’s capital on Sunday.
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US military chiefs said the target posed an imminent threat to the airport, with one official saying a car was “loaded up and ready to go”.
The youngest innocent victim was a two-year-old girl, according to a brother of one of those killed. The Taliban condemned the strike.
It came as their secretive leader Mullah Haibatullah was expected to mark today’s withdrawal with a rare public appearance in Kandahar.
Taliban officials have signalled they want to rule differently from his one-eyed predecessor Mullah Omar.
He outlawed music and television, banned girls’ education, hosted al-Qaeda and had women stoned to death for adultery before he was toppled in 2001.
'INCLUSIVE GOVERNMENT'
According to their public statements, the Taliban has promised to form an inclusive government and they want good diplomatic relations with the world.
Most of the movement’s foot soldiers are too young to remember 9/11, the al-Qaeda attacks that were plotted in Afghanistan and triggered the US-led invasion.
In the past ten days, The Sun has witnessed dozens of Taliban fighters from different parts of the country now garrisoning Kabul.
Some have Pakistani mobile numbers — a tell-tale sign of the time in madrassas on the far side of the lawless borders.
Others speak fluent Arabic, while some have a smattering of English learned in Afghan schools, paid for by western aid money.
Noorullah, a low-level commander of 25 men and who studied Arabic literature in Kabul, said: “People say we come from the mountains but it isn’t true any more.”
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Meanwhile, Shahazada Malikzai, 20, studied economics at a private university.
He joined the Taliban as a teenager to avenge what he saw as abuses by the foreign troops who had occupied his country for as long as he could remember.
He said: “We were children when they came. We didn’t know why they were here.
“But they came into our houses, they killed our families.”
He said he had an uncle in California who had lived there for years working as a security guard and a brother who served in the Afghan army until it collapsed.
He added: “Of course we were worried about killing each other.”
The Taliban have vowed to forgive their former enemies and offered soldiers and police an amnesty.
'WE HAVEN'T LOOTED ANYTHING'
But the exodus at Kabul airport that saw more than 125,000 refugees evacuated from the country in the space of two weeks is proof that people do not believe them.
Qasi Ali, a senior commander who had commandeered the Afghan Police Academy in the eastern outskirts of Kabul, said: “I don’t know why people are scared. The Taliban have brought security.
“Look at this office. We haven’t looted anything.”
He pointed to the computer, still showing the feeds from the CCTV cameras, and fridges and office furniture that could all have found homes in Kabul’s black market.
But the objects he was most proud of were a British policeman’s helmet and an American state police Stetson, which looked like gifts from bygone mentors.
He also claims the Taliban has “done women a favour”. He said: “In the rest of the world women have to fend for their families, they have to find their own food.
“We value them so much that we work for them and they can just relax at home.” Tens of thousands of women were too scared to leave their homes when the Taliban first took Kabul.
FREE TO LEAVE
Only a fraction are venturing out — but they include extraordinarily brave female journalists and women’s rights campaigners who marched with Afghan flags in defiance of the Taliban four days after they arrived.
Qasi Ali was adamant women would be able to continue working. He said: “We need female doctors, we need female police officers, female lawyers, female teachers.”
But he insisted they will have to wear a hijab.
Taliban guards have already encroached on parts of Kabul airport.
They have insisted that Afghans and foreign nationals will be free to leave if they have the correct papers when the airport reopens to commercial flights.
But at least 150 British nationals and 1,000 at-risk Afghans who were unable to get to the airport before the last mercy flight remain.
The Foreign Office is scrambling to work out who was left behind.
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It vowed to help anyone relocate if they had been approved for a place on an RAF flight.
Brits have also been warned to prepare for a heightened terror risk as the chaotic withdrawal creates space for extremist groups.
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