The last American plane departed from Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport Monday, one day before President Joe Biden’s self-imposed deadline to end American military presence in the country. The departure caps the chaotic end to America’s longest war that saw its foe recapture power after over 20 years of conflict.
The flashpoint of the evacuation was the suicide bombing that killed 13 US servicemembers as well as dozens of Afghan civilians. US officials have blamed the attack on members of the ISIS-Khorasan Province group, more commonly referred to as ISIS-K.
The evacuation was necessitated by the lightning fast takeover by the Taliban following the withdrawal of US forces from the country. Most of Afghanistan’s large cities fell within weeks of each other, with Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital, the last holdout among large population centers. When the Taliban captured Kabul on August 15, thousands of foreign citizens remaining in the city, prompting the US to take control over Hamid Karzai airport to facilitate evacuations.
While thousands of civilians were evacuated, the ability to do so without further conflict relied on cooperation from the Taliban, which the US and other allied forced had been fighting for nearly 20 years. The US has not committed to recognizing the Taliban-led government.
President Biden has seen a sharp decrease in his approval ratings following the chaotic withdrawal from the country, with his disapproval rating now topping his approval rating, according to 538. Biden has tried to shift the focus to the end of the war itself, rather than the handling of the evacuation, as polls have shown a majority of Americans approve of withdrawing from Afghanistan.
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