• Gunfire rings out in Afghanistan as Taliban celebrate victory,
KABUL, Afghanistan — Taliban fighters watched the last U.S. planes disappear into the sky around midnight Monday and then fired their guns into the air, celebrating victory after a 20-year insurgency in Afghanistan that drove the world’s most powerful military out of one of the poorest countries.
The departure of the cargo planes marked the end of a massive airlift in which tens of thousands of people fled Afghanistan, fearful of the return of Taliban rule after they took over most of the country and rolled into the capital earlier this month.
In Washington, Gen. Frank McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command, announced the completion of America’s longest war and the evacuation effort, saying the last planes took off from Kabul airport at 3:29 p.m. EDT — one minute before midnight Monday in Kabul.
“We did not get everybody out that we wanted to get out,” he said.
Many Afghans remain fearful, and there have been reports of killings and other abuses in areas under Taliban control despite pledges to restore peace and security.
Earlier Monday, Islamic State militants fired rockets at the international airport without hurting anyone. U.S. military cargo jets came and went despite the rocket attack.
The two-week airlift had brought scenes of desperation and horror. In the early days, people desperate to flee Taliban rule flooded onto the tarmac and some fell to their deaths after clinging to a departing aircraft. On Thursday, an Islamic State suicide attack at an airport gate killed at least 169 Afghans and 13 U.S. service members.
The extremist group is far more radical than the Taliban, who captured most of Afghanistan in a matter of days. The two groups have fought each other before, and the Taliban have pledged to not harbor terrorist groups. The Taliban are now in full control of the airport.
The Taliban honored a pledge not to attack Western forces during the evacuation, but IS remained a threat.
The U.S. carried out a drone strike Saturday it said killed two IS members. American officials said a U.S. drone strike on Sunday blew up a vehicle carrying IS suicide bombers who were planning to attack the airport.
Relatives of those killed in Sunday’s strike disputed that account, saying it killed civilians who had nothing to do with the extremist group.
Najibullah Ismailzada said his brother-in-law, Zemarai Ahmadi, 38, had arrived home from his job working with a Korean charity. As he drove into the garage, his children came out to greet him, and the missile struck.
“We lost 10 members of our family,” Mr. Ismailzada said, including six children raging in age from 2 to 8. He said another relative, Naser Nejrabi, who was a former soldier in the Afghan army and a former interpreter for the U.S. military in his mid20s, also was killed, along with two teenagers.