On Monday, thousands of panicking Afghans who were desperate to escape the Taliban capture of their country, rushed onto the tarmac of Kabul’s international airport.
U.S. officials said that they held onto an American military jet as it took off and plunged to death in chaos that killed at least seven people.
Videos posted on social media showed hundreds of people running across the tarmac as U.S. troops fired warning shots in the air.
One showed a crowd pushing and shoving its way up a staircase, trying to board a plane, with some people hanging off the railings.
The Taliban swept into Kabul on Sunday after President Ashraf Ghani fled the country, bringing an end to a two-decade campaign in which the U.S. and its allies had tried to transform Afghanistan.
The country’s Western-trained security forces collapsed or fled, ahead of the planned withdrawal of the last American troops at the end of the month.
