2021 Kabul airlift

Civilians entering a military plane to evacuate (or leave) Afghanistan

Large evacuations of foreign citizens and some Afghan citizens took place during the withdrawal of United States and NATO forces from the War in Afghanistan and the Taliban offensive in Afghanistan in 2021. After the fall of Kabul on 15 August 2021 and the collapse of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.

The Hamid Karzai International Airport remained the only non-Taliban controlled route out of the country, being protected by several thousand NATO troops.

Some countries had begun smaller evacuation efforts in the months leading up to August 2021.^[1]

On 26 August 2021, a suicide bombing happened at the airport killing over 180 people; ISIS-K said that it had the responsibility for the bombing.^[2]

The evacuation operations were one of the largest airlifts in history.^[3][4] Between 14 and 25 August, the US evacuated about 82,300 people from the airport.^[5]

References

1. Defence, National (24 August 2021). "Operation AEGIS". www.canada.ca.
2. "Kabul airport attack: What do we know?". BBC News. 27 August 2021. Retrieved 27 August 2021.
3. Ben Fix & Jamie Stengle, EXPLAINER: What's happening with Afghanistan evacuations?, Associated Press (25 August 2021).
4. CNN, Ellie Kaufman, Oren Liebermann, Veronica Stracqualursi and Alexis Benveniste. "Pentagon activates US airlines to assist with evacuation efforts from Afghanistan". CNN. Retrieved 28 August 2021. {{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help)
5. Jakes, Lara; Schmitt, Eric (25 August 2021). "The latest enemy to U.S. evacuation efforts in Afghanistan: Time". The New York Times.