TALIBAN fighters opened fire towards a panicking crowd including parents clutching their crying children as thousands continue to surround Kabul airport after the fall of Afghanistan.
Brutal scenes continue to unfold in Afghanistan, particularly around Kabul Airport where shocking videos appear to show gunmen firing first into the air and then towards a crowd of people.
As the desperate efforts to escape the new terror regime continue, the footage's show mothers and fathers clutching their children as gunmen open fire around them.
In one video, one woman can be seen clutching her crying daughter as the men point their guns at the crowds in background.
Another video shows hundreds of people cowering in a trench near the distinctive walls of the airport as gunfire rings out again and again.
Read our Afghanistan live blog below for the latest news & updates…
- Milica Cosic
A NEW UPRISING
President Saleh has been seen with the son of his former mentor, the famed anti-Taliban fighter Ahmed Shah Massoud in the mountains as they form up a resistance.
Speaking to the Times earlier this year, he said: "I am ready to die with a chest and head full of a hundred bullets rather than be part of an elite deal which will sell the rights of my people to a medieval terrorist organisation."
Massoud led the Northern Alliance against the Taliban until his assassination by al-Qaeda, two days before the fall of the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001.
Saleh said: "I will never betray the soul and legacy of my hero Ahmad Shah Massoud, the commander, the legend and the guide."
The Northern Alliance movement is now officially alive for the first time since 2001, led by the 32-year-old son of its ex-leader Massoud and who shares his name.
Ahmad Massoud, who was trained at Sandhurst, said: "I am in Panjshir with my people.We will stand with our people to the end."
Soldiers from Afghan Security forces travel on an armed vehicle along a road in Panjshir province of Afghanistan - Milica Cosic
SAS-TRAINED AFGHAN COMMANDOS VOW TO FIGHT TO OUR ‘LAST DROP OF BLOOD’ AS RESISTANCE RISES UP AGAINST ‘MEDIEVAL’ TALIBAN
Afghan forces who are still determined to continue fighting are regrouping in the Panjshir Valley, an area just 80 miles north of Kabul.
It is the only one of the country’s 34 provinces not to have fallen to the religious fanatics who steamrollered across Afghanistan in a matter of weeks.
Any soldiers or militias who want to take up arms against the Taliban are being urged to flock to Panjshir – where Afghanistan's vice president Amrullah Saleh has declared himself the country's rightful leader.
In a Twitter message to Afghans, Saleh said: "Join the resistance. I will never, ever and under no circumstances bow to Talib terrorists."
He has vowed to resist after President Ashraf Ghani fled the country – reportedly escaping with bags of cash worth up to $169million.
Read more here.
- Milica Cosic
AFGHAN STOWAWAY ‘KILLED IN PLANE’S LANDING GEAR’ WAS FOOTBALLER WHO POSTED FINAL MESSAGE ABOUT ‘CHOOSING OWN DESTINY’
Zaki Anwari’s remains were said to have been found aboard the US Air Force C-17 transport plane after the aircraft dashed to escape the advancing Taliban while carrying hundreds of refugees.
It has been reported that Zaki was the individual who became stuck and whose remains were recovered by the US crew.
In his final Facebook post, the promising young footballer spoke to being the master of his own destiny.
"You're the painter of your live (sic) Don't give the paint brush to anyone else," he wrote.
Zaki Anwari was reportedly one of the young men who fell from the C-17
- Milica Cosic
SAVE THE CHILDREN SAY UK ‘NOT DOING ENOUGH’ TO HELP STRUGGLING AFGHANS
Save the Children’s campaigns director Athena Rayburn has said the government’s “obligation” to provide basic necessities for people struggling in Afghanistan is “not being fulfilled”.
Miss Rayburn said: I think one of the problems with the conversation [in the UK] is that yes, we need to make sure that those Afghans who want to leave have safe passage, but we have an obligation to both those in Afghanistan and those who have left.
"This is a country that the UK has a historical engagement with, has had a military presence in, and has a very concrete obligation to the Afghan people. That obligation at the moment is not being fulfilled at all.”
- Milica Cosic
QANON FOLLOWERS THINK TALIBAN’S RISE TO POWER IN AFGHANISTAN ‘IS A HOAX TO DISTRACT FROM ELECTION FRAUD CLAIMS’
QANON followers claim that the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan is a hoax being used to distract the US public from election fraud claims.
Other conspiracy theorists believe that while the resurgence of the Taliban in the country is real, that it was orchestrated by President Joe Biden, again in an effort to distract from an election audit in Arizona.
Despite videos emerging from Afghanistan of the panic and violence, the theory has amassed a following since being shared by popular figure Ron Watkins on his Telegram and Gab accounts.
Watkins is the former administrator of 8kun, a website that facilitated the rise of QAnon, according to Vice.
“The ongoing failure in Afghanistan is just the beginning of a planned distraction campaign so they can ignore the Maricopa County audit results,” Watkins said on Telegram on Tuesday.
The post has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times with thousands of users commenting below in agreement.
Read more here.
- Milica Cosic
CONSPIRACY THEORISTS THINK THERE’S A 9/11 REFERENCE ON US EVACUATION FLIGHT THAT SAW AFGHAN STOWAWAYS FALL TO DEATHS
The C-17 jet seen in harrowing footage earlier this week has a tail number which reads in part "1109."
That's led to some online labelling the chaotic scenes at Kabul airport as "fake" because of the September 11 terrorist attacks on America that were coordinated from Afghanistan.
Others note that "1109 not a good number for US in history."
Footage shows as three stowaways fell hundreds feet from the transport plane as thousands of desperate Afghans tried to flee the country.
The two who died are believed to aged 16 and 17 and video posted later appeared to show residents collecting their bodies.
The chaos at Kabul Airport has already seen at least seven people dead with more people clambering over walls to get in.
Read more here.
The C-17 jet seen in harrowing footage earlier this week has a tail number which reads in part '1109' - Milica Cosic
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL SAYS AFGHAN ‘DRACONIAN’ ASYLUM MEASURES MAY ‘VILIFY’ REFUGEES WHO MAKE OWN WAY TO UK
Steve Valdez-Symonds, refugee and migrant rights director at Amnesty International UK, said the announcement on Tuesday evening was welcome but was “unforgivably slow or just not focused on the most immediate emergency for people at risk in the country”.
He said: “And what, meanwhile, about Afghans who make their own way to the UK to seek asylum or who are already here? Will they still be vilified and criminalised by the Government’s draconian new asylum measures?”
- Milica Cosic
EXPLAINED: WHO ARE THE TALIBAN AND WHAT DO THEY WANT?
The Taliban is designated as a "terror group", alongside the likes of Al-Qaeda by the Security Council.
Devout followers are responsible for most insurgent attacks in Afghanistan.
The International Terrorism Guide website explains that "the Taliban are a Sunni Islamist nationalist and pro-Pashtun movement founded in the early 1990s".
The Taliban is on a bloody path to wrest back control of Afghanistan, following the withdrawal of foreign forces.
They have up to 100,000 full-time fighters, and are "stronger now than at any point in the past 20 years," reports the Council on Foreign Relations.
- Milica Cosic
"I HAVE BAD MEMORIES OF THEIR REGIME" – DESPERATION TO LEAVE AFGHANISTAN
The airport has become the centre of the disruption around the city as thousands remain camped out, desperately hoping they may be able to catch a flight out of Afghanistan.
Unconfirmed reports on social media say several people have been killed as US forces and the Taliban – separated by an unofficial no-man's land – struggle to contain the desperate throngs of people.
"I am desperate to leave, I have bad memories of their regime," a 30-year-old who worked for a foreign NGO and tried but failed to reach Kabul airport said.
Another man added: "I went to the airport with my kids and family… the Taliban and Americans were shooting.
"Despite that (the shooting) people were moving forward just because they knew a situation worse than death awaited them outside the airport."
- Milica Cosic
TERRIFIED MUMS SHIELD THEIR BABIES AND PASS KIDS OVER FENCE AS TALIBAN OPEN FIRE AT KABUL AIRPORT
Shocking videos appear to show gunmen firing first into the air and then towards a crowd of people as the desperate efforts to escape the new terror regime continue.
One video appears to show a crowd people gathered around men in camouflage fatigues – understood to the Taliban's elite Badri 313 special forces unit – before the shooting begins.
Gunshots then ring out as the armed men attempt to disperse the crowd as the screaming families run for their lives.
And one woman can be seen clutching her crying daughter as the men point their guns at the crowds in background.
A woman cradles a little girl as gunfire erupts around her outside Kabul airport A man holding a girl runs for cover as gunman opens fire - Milica Cosic
BIDEN SLAMMED OVER CHAOS
Critics compared the retreat to the "fall of Saigon" in 1975 that effectively ended the Vietnam War.
Biden told ABC on Wednesday: “No, I don't think it could have been handled in a way that, we're gonna go back in hindsight and look.
"But the idea that somehow, there's a way to have gotten out without chaos ensuing, I don't know how that happens. I don't know how that happened."
Biden was probed on the pictures of the chaos seen at Kabul airport earlier this week that saw stowaways fall to their death and desperate Afghans crushed in a stampede.
Biden also told ABC that troops would stay in Afghanistan beyond August 31 if not all Americans had been evacuated by that date.
Last month, the president said the US military mission in the war-torn country would've ended by that date.
He previously made the commitment to bring all US troops home by the 20th anniversary of 9/11.
- Milica Cosic
DRAMATIC MOMENT TALIBAN FIGHTERS CHARGE AT CNN REPORTER CLARISSA WARD AND BRANDISH AK-47S DEMANDING SHE COVER HER FACE
Clarissa Ward was reporting from Kabul Airport on Wednesday when she was approached by a Taliban fighter holding a truncheon who demanded through an interpreter that she hide her face.
She told those watching that he was claiming the US is to blame for the chaotic scenes as Afghans try to enter the airport and flee the country.
“The cause of all this is America in Afghanistan,” he reportedly told her.
“Look at these people. America is really acting unfairly toward them. Why are they lying and telling them they can go to America? Why don’t they stay and help their country?”
Ward was then reportedly told that the fighter did not wish to speak to her.
Read more here.
- Milica Cosic
CONFUSED AND DESPERATE AFGHANS WAIT UNDER TALIBAN 'SECURITY' FOR CHANCE TO ESCAPE
Outside of the British evacuation camp, the Taliban are protection and processing thousands of hopefuls bound for the UK.
Unfortunately, there are many British nationals and Europeans outside of the compound, waiting to be administered on a flight out.
Despite having the correct paperwork and documents, many have been waiting days to get to the gates.
One man from London said he was stuck for two days in front of the gates: "I'm trying to get in… I went to the Americans – they pushed me out, they kicked me out.
"I went to the Germans, they beat me up with sticks, they fired at us… you can see this gas fired makes you cry.
"My one-hear-old kid they fired with the gas and everyone was crying right here like an hour ago, the tear gas in the kids, you can see the kids there, like one year's old kid, how can you do that?"
- Milica Cosic
MOSCOW READY TO EVACUATE AFGHAN CITIZENS
Despite the military retreat of its rivals, Moscow says it stands ready to evacuate Afghan citizens from the country, given the “incapacity” of western countries to do so.
Foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said Taliban officials agreed to allow Russian aviation to fly in and out of Kabul “without hindrance.”
Because of this, Moscow is now going to offer "unlimited" flights to Afghan citizens "to any foreign country" ready to accept them.
- Milica Cosic
THE VOICE STAR ARYANA SAYEED'S FIGHT TO FREEDOM
Ms Sayeed first left her Afghan homeland when she was just eight years old, with her family finally settling in Switzerland and then in London in the year 2000.
After her rise to stardom, Ms Sayeed regularly visited Afghanistan where her life was at risk.
Appearing on The Voice in fashionable figure-hugging clothing and without a headscarf, Ms Sayeed said that Mullahs, or mosque leaders, have threatened her life.
Speaking to CNN in 2014 she said: "They said that whoever kills this singer would go to heaven.
"It was getting really difficult, I couldn't go anywhere. I was basically a prisoner in my hotel room, I had bodyguards with me all the time."
Ms Sayeed has also been a vocal supporter of women's rights, rights which are now in jeopardy now that the Taliban have taken control of the country.
On Wednesday, the Taliban said the decision on whether women can study and work would be left to a council of Islamic scholars.
Read more here.
- Milica Cosic
THE VOICE STAR ARYANA SAYEED FLEES AFTER ‘WORLD OF DISBELIEF AND SHOCK’ IN KABUL
Aryana Sayeed, 36, who lives in Turkey, reassured her Instagram followers of her safety after escaping the country on Wednesday.
"I am well and alive and after a couple of unforgettable nights, I have reached Doha, Qatar and am awaiting my eventual flight back home to Istanbul," the singer told her 1.3 million Instagram followers.
images of the pop star show her at Kabul airport along with her producer and husband Hasib Sayed.
They can then also be seen aboard the US Air Force military plane, wearing face masks as they head to Doha in Qatar.
Ms Sayeed escaped Afghanistan with her husband on a US cargo plane - Milica Cosic
MUM OF AFGHAN REFUGEE, 5, CRIED ‘MY SON’ AS HE FELL FROM HOTEL’S 9TH FLOOR
The mother of a five-year-old Afghan refugee boy who fell to his death from a hotel's 9th floor window cried "my son, my son" as he fell, a witness said.
And another mum had previously warned about the windows of the hotel TWO YEARS before the tragic accident, Sun Online can reveal.
The guest, who stayed at the OYO Sheffield Metropolitan Hotel, South Yorkshire two years ago, said she was too scared to open the windows in case "my children would fall out".
The little boy who died yesterday and his family arrived in the UK recently after fleeing the Taliban to seek a safer life.
It's believed he died after plunging about 70ft around 2.30pm as he peered from a ninth-floor room window at the hotel.
A hotel resident, also an interpreter for the British in Afghanistan, said: "I was in my room. I heard a sound, like I heard the body fall.
"His mother was in the room with him. She was screaming, 'My son, my son.'
The five-year-old had arrived in the UK just days ago - Milica Cosic
RESISTANCE 'READY TO DIE'
Trained by soldiers from the US and Britain – reportedly including the SAS – the troopers are considered the best of the best and had been attempting to hold the line.
"We are thousands and many more are coming. We have local people as well," a source told The Sun Online.
"It is not ordinary resistance. It is the resistance of thousands of trained forces who are familiar with every inch of the soil and who has excellent experience in fighting the terrorists for the past 20 years.
"I am not going to die before destroying Taliban. We will fight till the last bullet."
- Milica Cosic
TIMELINE OF TAKEOVER: WHAT'S HAPPENED SO FAR? (CONTINUED…)
August 1, 2021 – Taliban launches assaults on three cities in Afghanistan in ‘worst violence for 20 years’
August 10, 2021 – The Taliban is ‘going door-to-door dragging out girls as young as 12 to make them fighters’ sex slaves’ in terrifying rampage
August 12, 2021 – The UK sends 600 troops to evacuate Brits from Afghanistan as rampaging Taliban seize 11 cities and ‘close in on Kabul’
August 19, 2021 – The Taliban shoot dead protesters and whip crowds in Afghanistan after initial charm offensive, many mothers have been throwing their babies over wire fences to get them to safety. The evacuation of Afghan refugees by US and UK forces are in full swing.
Read the article in full here.
- Milica Cosic
TIMELINE OF TAKEOVER: WHAT'S HAPPENED SO FAR?
October 2001 – Taliban militants removed from power in Afghanistan
September 2020 – Peace talks launched between representatives of the Afghan government and Taliban
April 2021 – US President Biden announces America will withdraw troops by August 31 despite Secretary of State Anthony Blinken warning of carnage from the Taliban
July 1, 2021 – Union Flag lowered in Afghanistan, ending 20 years of the UK’s military presence in the country
July 19, 2021 – US and Nato write a letter begging the Taliban to end terror rampage after fleeing Afghanistan as fanatics seize more territory
- Milica Cosic
EXPLAINED: WHAT DO THE TALIBAN WANT?
The Taliban is on a bloody path to wrest back control of Afghanistan, following the withdrawal of foreign forces.
They have up to 100,000 full-time fighters, and are "stronger now than at any point in the past 20 years," reports the Council on Foreign Relations.
The militants have ramped up their push across much of Afghanistan, turning their guns on provincial capitals after taking large swaths of land in the mostly rural countryside.
As of August 9, 2021, Afghan government forces were fighting the Taliban for a string of southern cities.
The loss of any major southern city would represent a significant shift in the balance of power.
- Milica Cosic
AFGHAN STOWAWAY ‘KILLED IN PLANE’S LANDING GEAR’ WAS FOOTBALLER WHO POSTED FINAL MESSAGE ABOUT ‘CHOOSING OWN DESTINY’
Zaki Anwari’s remains were said to have been found aboard the US Air Force C-17 transport plane after the aircraft dashed to escape the advancing Taliban while carrying hundreds of refugees.
It has been reported that Zaki was the individual who became stuck and whose remains were recovered by the US crew.
In his final Facebook post, the promising young footballer spoke to being the master of his own destiny.
"You're the painter of your live (sic) Don't give the paint brush to anyone else," he wrote.
Zaki Anwari was reportedly one of the young men who fell from the C-17 - Milica Cosic
BIDEN BLASTED FOR ‘BALD-FACED LIES’ OVER KABUL CHAOS (CONTINUED…)
Republicans blasted Biden for his remarks as some accused the president of "ignorance and dishonesty", MailOnline reports.
Senator Tom Cotton tweeted: "No way to avoid chaos? That's a bald-faced lie. Joe Biden is as dishonest as he is impotent."
Meanwhile, Rep. Liz Cheney said: "A truly ignorant and shameful performance by an American president."
Read the article in full here.
- Milica Cosic
BIDEN BLASTED FOR ‘BALD-FACED LIES’ OVER KABUL CHAOS
The criticism comes as the president snapped at photographs that showed stowaways falling to their deaths as they tried to escape the Taliban.
Biden didn’t appear to show any regrets following the chaotic scenes in Kabul that saw US diplomats hastily evacuated as insurgents seized the capital on Sunday.
Critics compared the retreat to the "fall of Saigon" in 1975 that effectively ended the Vietnam War.
Biden told ABC on Wednesday: “No, I don't think it could have been handled in a way that, we're gonna go back in hindsight and look.
"But the idea that somehow, there's a way to have gotten out without chaos ensuing, I don't know how that happens. I don't know how that happened."
Biden was slammed for 'bald-faced lies' following his interview on ABC - Milica Cosic
A NEW UPRISING
President Saleh has been seen with the son of his former mentor, the famed anti-Taliban fighter Ahmed Shah Massoud in the mountains as they form up a resistance.
Speaking to the Times earlier this year, he said: "I am ready to die with a chest and head full of a hundred bullets rather than be part of an elite deal which will sell the rights of my people to a medieval terrorist organisation."
Massoud led the Northern Alliance against the Taliban until his assassination by al-Qaeda, two days before the fall of the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001.
Saleh said: "I will never betray the soul and legacy of my hero Ahmad Shah Massoud, the commander, the legend and the guide."
The Northern Alliance movement is now officially alive for the first time since 2001, led by the 32-year-old son of its ex-leader Massoud and who shares his name.
Ahmad Massoud, who was trained at Sandhurst, said: "I am in Panjshir with my people.We will stand with our people to the end."
Soldiers from Afghan Security forces travel on an armed vehicle along a road in Panjshir province of Afghanistan
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