A Day of Chaos at Kabul Airport

Aug. 17 , 2021 (EIRNS)—The U.S. military closed the airport in Kabul for several hours yesterday to clear the crowds that had surged onto the tarmac, taxiways, and even the runway. It is being reported that at least ten people died in the chaos at the airport. Pentagon officials, during press briefings, confirmed that two had been shot by U.S. troops, but they couldn’t say whether or not those were Taliban.

Dramatic images showing a U.S. C-17 cargo plane taxiing through the crowd with dozens of people clinging to its landing gear and whatever else they could grab on to, have gone viral, with the images of the plane taking off and Afghans dropping from it after it reached several hundred feet into the air drawing expressions of shock across the globe. U.S. Central Command officials later confirmed to ABC News that human remains were found in the landing gear after the plane landed in Qatar some hours later.

Another dramatic image making the rounds showed the interior of another C-17 that took off on Aug. 15, loaded with 640 Afghanis sitting on the cargo floor. The flight crew apparently decided it was better to take off than to try to force them back off the plane and took them on to Qatar.