Jane Ferguson:
Scenes in the city have been pretty remarkable today. We’ve seen the Taliban actually enter the city with our own eyes as we were leaving to go out towards the airport area and see around the airport where the evacuations are happening. Around about sunset, we saw the Taliban moving in. We knew there were Taliban elements inside the city, but that largely on the outskirts of the city, Taliban soldiers had been gathering that the Taliban leadership had told them to wait until there’s been a negotiated transfer of power before they entered the city. Later in the day, that leadership told them to enter. And they’re saying that’s because they want them to prevent looting. Let’s not forget that tonight no one’s really in charge of this city. And that’s a very, very scary prospect for the several million people who live here.
So the Taliban basically gave the nod to their fighters to enter. As we were driving down the road, we saw Talibs who were fully armed, some of them, many of them with M4 rifles, others that were unarmed, that were coming in in cars. They saw us, looked at us, didn’t look very happy to see us, but didn’t bother us, let us drive by. All the while, the Afghan security forces were there as well. They were driving in their own trucks in the vicinity of these Taliban fighters, which is a surreal image for anybody, especially journalists who have been covering these two warring sides for so long. So there was clearly a sort of cooperative element to that. And so the population of Kabul right now are bracing themselves because they’ve seen the ANDSF and the security forces and the police basically leave, a city famous for its checkpoints has emptied of any security presence.
