America’s longest war is over – they chose to walk away but ended up running
In the end, it was the Taliban, with their volleys of gunfire, who announced the Americans had gone – uncomfortably apt really, given they have been calling the shots for the past few weeks.
For days, in Washington, the US administration had refused to say quite when their Afghanistan withdrawal would be complete.
For obvious security reasons they wouldn’t confirm precisely what ’31 August’ meant. Was it as that day began? Was it midnight at the end of that day? US time, or Afghan time?
It turned out to be just before midnight as 30 August became 31 August.
In the darkness, the last American plane pulled up and away from the tarmac of Hamid Karzai International Airport.
It brought to an end two weeks of total chaos, but also a remarkable airlift like no other in history.
Through the day, the planes had left, one after the other, banking sharply to avoid the rocket fire from below.
This is what the end of the chaotic exit looked like; the end of a 20-year-old war. A country and a people left to a future, unknown.
At the Pentagon in Washington, an announcement came eventually to confirm what the Taliban images had already shown us.
“I’m here to announce the completion of our withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the end of the military mission,” Marine Corps General Frank McKenzie, the commander of US Central Command said.
“The last C-17 lifted off from Hamid Karzai International Airport on August 30, this afternoon, at 3:29 pm, East Coast time, and the last manned aircraft is now clearing the airspace above Afghanistan.”
The US has completed its withdrawal from Afghanistan after the last of its planes took off from Kabul airport.
An hour or so later from the State department, America’s top diplomat emerged from a brutal fortnight for American leadership, looking forward, not back.
“Now, US military fights have ended, and our troops have departed Afghanistan. A new chapter of America’s engagement with Afghanistan has begun. It’s one in which we will lead with our diplomacy. The military mission is over. A new diplomatic mission has begun,” Antony Blinken said.
“The main point I want to drive home here today is that America’s work in Afghanistan continues. We have a plan for what’s next. We’re putting it into action,” he continued, concluding, “we’ll honour all those brave men and women in the United States and many other countries who risked or sacrificed their lives as part of this long mission.”
And with that, America’s longest war was over. They chose to walk away, and they ended up running, taking their allies with them. A deadline set by the American president had been met, but at what cost?
The United States has strained key relationships with close allies.
In the UK, the worth of the so-called ‘special relationship’ has become a central debate.
In Brussels, NATO members have had it confirmed, if they didn’t already know, that without America, their alliance is pretty worthless.
In Moscow and Beijing, they received the same message. The masters inside the Kremlin and at Zhongnanhai will see this episode as more evidence that the American president is beholden to a weary and insular American public in ways that Putin and Xi are not. The advantages, for them, are there to seize.
Then there is terrorism. The return this weekend of the bodies of 13 troops killed by ISIS terrorists last week in Kabul was the tragic image that undermined the president’s justification for the withdrawal.
The ISIS-K suicide attack at the airport killed 13 US service personnel and dozens of civilians. Pic: AP
Afghanistan is still a home for terrorists. America is leaving a country broken, not fixed.
“There are probably at least 2,000 hardcore ISIS fighters in Afghanistan now, and of course many of those come from the prisons that were opened a few days ago,” General McKenzie admitted in the same briefing where he declared the mission to be at an end.
“So that number is up and it’s probably as high as it’s ever been in quite a while and that’s going to be a challenge for the Taliban I believe in the days to come,” the General added.
From the White House, the president released only a statement defending the withdrawal and thanking his troops. He will address the nation later today.
For now, the fundamental unanswered questions were left for his spokesperson.
“Is the US more or less safe today than we were before the Taliban took over,” Jen Psaki was asked.
“Well again, we are not going to do anything that’s going to allow terrorists to grow or prosper in Afghanistan,” she said.
Repeatedly the administration have ignored or plainly denied the fact that al Qaeda and the Taliban remain close and the hard line Haqqani Network, whose number include some of America’s most-wanted, now hold key posts in the Taliban.
In New York, a UN Security Council meeting was an attempt to find optimism and some common ground between the Americans, Russia and China.
They hope that the Taliban can prove it is a different entity from the one it once was. The evidence isn’t very encouraging but the UN will hold the mullahs to their word to allow the continued safe passage of Afghans and foreigners out of the country.
The last member of the US armed forces to leave Afghanistan. Pic: @18AirborneCorps
As night fell in Washington, an image was released which will define a military endeavour that proved politically impossible and so tragically bloody.
Through the green of a night-vision lens, it showed the last American soldier to leave the battlefield – Major-General Chris Donahue, commander of the 82nd Airbourne Division. Afghanistan behind him.
Elon Musk has criticised US President Donald Trump’s tax and spending bill, calling it “outrageous” and a “disgusting abomination”.
The bill, which includes multi-trillion-dollar tax breaks, was passed by the House Republicans in May, and has been described by the president as a “big, beautiful bill”.
The tech billionaire hit out at the tax cuts on his platform X, writing: “I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it anymore.
“This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination.
“Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it.”
Elon Musk left his ‘special government employee’ role last week. Pic: AP.
In American politics, “pork” is a political metaphor used when government spending is allocated to local projects, usually to benefit politicians’ constituencies.
Musk left the administration abruptly last week after working to cut costs with his team, the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency – known as DOGE – with the ambition of sacking federal workers and cutting red tape.
The White House brushed Musk’s comments aside, claiming they did not surprise the president.
In a press conference on Tuesday, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that “the president already knows where Elon Musk stood on this bill”.
She added: “This is one, big, beautiful bill.
“And he’s sticking to it.”
The White House on Tuesday asked Congress to cut back $9.4bn in already approved spending, taking money away from DOGE.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
What did Musk achieve at DOGE?
The billionaire tweeted: “It will massively increase the already gigantic budget deficit to $2.5 trillion (!!!!) and burden American citizens with crushingly unsustainable debt.”
He also suggested voting out politicians who advanced the president’s tax bill.
“In November next year, we fire all politicians who betrayed the American people,” Musk wrote in another X post.
How Musk’s mission to cut government spending fell flat
Last Thursday, Musk revealed on X that his scheduled time as a “special government employee” was coming to an end.
Before the news broke, Musk’s father told Sky News his son was “not a very good politician”.
But speaking to Gillian Joseph on The World, Errol Musk insisted there was “no rift between Elon and Donald Trump”.
Musk’s time at DOGE was controversial, with drastic cuts to America’s humanitarian efforts sparking particular criticism.
Questions have also been raised about whether the department has actually saved taxpayers as much money as suggested.
Musk initially had ambitions to slash government spending by $2trn (£1.5trn) – but this was dramatically reduced to $1trn (£750bn) and then to just $150bn (£111bn).
Elon Musk brought his son X Æ A-12 to the Oval Office during a press conference earlier this year. Pic: Reuters.
The 53-year-old, who famously brought his son X Æ A-12 to the Oval Office, also expressed frustration about resistance to his ideas and clashed with other senior members of the Trump administration.
He recently told The Washington Post: “The federal bureaucracy situation is much worse than I realised. I thought there were problems, but it sure is an uphill battle trying to improve things in DC to say the least.”
By law, status as a “special government employee” means he could only serve for a maximum of 130 days, which would have ended around 30 May.
The family of the man accused of throwing petrol bombs at a pro-Israel group in Colorado have been taken into custody.
Immigration officers detained Mohamed Soliman’s relatives, believed to be his wife and five children.
Soliman, an Egyptian national, moved to the US three years ago and lived in Colorado Springs but was there illegally after his visa and work authorisation expired. He reportedly has two teenage children and three younger children.
“We are investigating to what extent his family knew about this heinous attack, if they had knowledge of it, or if they provided support to it,” said homeland security secretary Kristi Noem on X.
Soliman, 45, is being held after Molotov cocktails were thrown at a group doing a walk for Israeli hostages in Boulder on Sunday.
The attacker allegedly yelled “Free Palestine” and had a total of 18 petrol bombs – but police said he “got scared” and only tossed a couple.
Soliman also had a makeshift flamethrower in the form of gas in a backpack sprayer, according to a FBI statement, but told investigators he did not use it.
Twelve people were injured, authorities said. The victims were aged between 52 and 88 and three of them were still being treated in hospital on Tuesday.
Mohamed Soliman appeared with a bandaged ear in a mugshot. Pic: Boulder Police Dept.
Soliman was allegedly dressed as a gardener to get as close as he could to the small group. Authorities said he told them he had no regrets.
He has been charged with a hate crime and 16 counts of attempted murder in federal and state cases.
Court papers said he planned the attack for a year and told authorities that no one, including his family, was aware of the plot.
Video showed Soliman being arrested at the scene and an apparent burn mark on the ground
An FBI statement said Soliman left an iPhone hidden in a drawer at his home with messages for his family but that his wife handed it to police.
The family are said to be cooperating with investigators.
Soliman admitted taking gun training to try to get a permit but was denied as he wasn’t a US citizen, according to police and the FBI.
Barred from buying a firearm, he allegedly used YouTube to learn how to make petrol bombs.
Read more from Sky News:
Musk calls Trump-backed tax bill ‘disgusting abomination’
King Of The Hill actor shot dead
Law enforcement searched for bombs after the attack. Pic: AP
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the Boulder attack was “aimed against peaceful people who wished to express their solidarity with the hostages held by Hamas, simply because they were Jews”.
The incident follows the arrest of a Chicago-born man in the fatal shooting of two Israeli embassy employees in Washington DC last month.
Tensions are simmering in the US over Israel’s war in Gaza.
There has been an increase in antisemitic hate crime, as well as moves by some supporters of Israel to brand pro-Palestinian protests as antisemitic.
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business3 years agoBank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway