New footage has emerged of the Taliban entering Kabul airport, just after the last American plane left.

Nabih Bulos, a correspondent with the Los Angeles Times, followed a team of Taliban fighters as they explored a hangar with what appears to be aircraft left behind by retreating US forces.

"We're here with the Taliban as they enter what was only minutes ago was an American-controlled portion of the military airport. Now they've taken over," he says to the camera.

Other videos posted also showed the Taliban fighters shooting their machine guns into the sky in celebration, cheering and posing for pictures, and exploring the rest of the airport.

With foreign evacuation flights now ended, Afghans still desperate to find a way out of the country may be heading to the nation’s borders.

Already over the past two weeks, thousands have fled to neighbouring Pakistan.

Our reporter Shumaila Jaffery has been at the Chaman border:

“From dawn till dusk they pour in - hundreds of men with luggage on their shoulders, burqa-clad women walking briskly behind their men, children clinging to their mothers, exhausted in the scorching heat, and even patients pushed on wheelbarrows.”

She spoke with many refugees, including one student who said:

“Everybody wants to live in their homes, but we were forced to leave Afghanistan. We are not feeling good about migrating to Pakistan or other countries, all people are worried, but they don't have any hope”.

Read her full despatch here.

With the country now back in their hands, Taliban supporters celebrated across Kabul after the last US plane flew out.

Scenes from Kabul showed supporters firing guns into the air and cars honking into the early hours of Tuesday.

The last American troops left Kabul Airport at midnight.

At that point, Afghanistan gained “full independence,” one Taliban representative, Zabihullah Mujahid said.

Another senior Taliban official, Anas Haqqani, was quoted by AFP as saying he was “proud” to witness such “historic moments”.

The completion of the withdrawal from Afghanistan symbolising the end of a 20-year military operation by the US has sparked strong reaction across the political spectrum in the country.

President Biden has already been heavily criticised for the rushed, chaotic end to the mission – and Republicans on Monday night stepped up their attacks.

In particular, they’re criticising the fact that the US has only evacuated 6,000 citizens out of an estimated 15,000 Americans in Afghanistan – not all of whom want to leave.

Secretary of state Anthony Blinken said earlier that an estimated 100-200 Americans who do wish to leave are still in the country.

However, many Democrats reiterated commitments to persisting in getting the last Americans out, along with Afghans wishing to leave.

Many also paid tribute to the American service personnel who had served.

And some also welcomed the end of their nation's longest war.

Image source, Getty Images

Soon after the US announced the end of its Afghanistan mission, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken told reporters that 123,000 people were safely flown out since the Taliban took over on 14 August.

Out of them, 6,000 were American citizens. Secretary Blinken says between 100 and 200 American citizens who still want to leave remain in the country and that the US will hold the Taliban to their promise to let people freely depart the country.

It is unclear just how many of those evacuated are Afghans.

• Around 15,000 people were flown to Britain, according to the UK defence ministry
• Canada facilitated the evacuation of roughly 3,700 Canadian and Afghan citizens
• Germany flew around 5,300 people out, including more than 4,000 Afghan nationals
• Italy evacuated just over 5,000 people including 4,890 Afghans
• Nearly 3,000 people including more than 2,600 Afghans were taken to France
• Australia welcomed 4,100 people including more than 3,200 citizens and Afghans with visas to the country
• The Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Australia and Sweden are among countries that evacuated more than 1,000 people each from Kabul airport.

The US spent $83bn over 20 years to train up and resource an Afghan national army.

But with the fall of Kabul on 15 August to the Taliban, those arms and weaponry have since been taken by the Taliban.

Its fighters have been pictured showing off a host of US-made weaponry and vehicles on social media - among them Black Hawk helicopters, Humvees and a variety of machine guns and rifles.

Some of them have also been seen in complete combat gear - making them indistinguishable from other special forces around the world, commentators have said.

Read more here

Image source, Reuters

With the last US flight leaving Afghanistan, America's longest war has come to an end.

Here's a timeline of some of the biggest developments during the 20-year conflict.

• 7 October 2001: A US-led coalition bombs Taliban and al-Qaeda facilities in Afghanistan. Targets include Kabul, Kandahar and Jalalabad. The Taliban, who took power after a decade-long Soviet occupation was followed by civil war, refuse to hand over al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden
• 13 November 2001: The Northern Alliance, a group of anti-Taliban rebels backed by coalition forces, capture Kabul
• 7 February 2009: US President Barack Obama approves a major increase in the number of troops sent to Afghanistan. At their peak, they number about 140,000
• 28 December 2014: Nato ends its combat operations in Afghanistan. With the surge now over, the US withdraws thousands of troops. Most of those who remain focus on training and supporting the Afghan security forces
• 29 February 2020: The US and the Taliban sign an “agreement for bringing peace” to Afghanistan, in Doha, Qatar. The US and Nato allies agree to withdraw all troops within 14 months if the militants uphold the deal
• 13 April 2021: US president Joe Biden announces that all US troops will leave Afghanistan by 11 September that year
• 16 August 2021: In just over a month, the Taliban sweep across Afghanistan, taking control of towns and cities all over the country, including Kabul. Afghan security forces collapse in the face of the Taliban advance
• 31 August 2021: The US completes its withdrawal from Afghanistan

Amateur video has emerged, allegedly showing members of the Taliban walking into Kabul airport. The BBC cannot independently verify the authenticity of the footage.

A group of men, thought to be Taliban fighters are walking around, describing what they see to the camera. Planes can be seen in the background.

One man points and says: "Thanks be to Allah. The planes are all parked there. We have entered the ground of the airport. There is no problem. Thanks be to Allah."

Another man is asked if he has a message for the public to which he replies: "My message is to have no worries. Everything is going fine. Thanks be to Allah."

From a haunting image of an American soldier to the Taliban celebrating in the streets of Kabul, we bring you a quick round-up of the final hours of the US presence on Afghan soil.

Lyse Doucet
Chief International Correspondent

Even after 40 years of war, I don’t think Afghans have lived through a transition that is so uncertain, that is so shrouded in darkness and that is so overcast in fear. There is great uncertainty about what lies ahead.

There is uncertainty and fear for the thousands of Afghans who have left the country in the last few days who will wonder whether they will see their homeland again.

For the 38 million Afghans that remain in the country, there is significant uncertainty over what kind of rule the Taliban will impose. Will they bring back the harsh rules and punishments that characterised their last spell in charge of the country.

Many Afghans look at Taliban rule in rural areas and fear that they have not changed, but that they've somehow got even worse.

This is a deeply traditional society. Women and girls gained a small amount of freedom as the Western coalition forces encouraged education. The greatest losers are the girls who came of age in the past 20 years who believe now that they cannot live the life they were promised,

Tomorrow will start the next chapter of this long war. Americas longest war is over, but the battle for Afghans certainly isn't.

You can watch Secretary State Anthony Blinken's statement marking the end of the US evacuation of Aghanistan here:

He says a new chapter in the US's engagment with Afghanistan has begun.

"We will lead with our diplomacy. The military mission is over. A new diplomatic mission has begun," he says.

Good morning to our readers in Asia and Oceania. We are chronicling the end of an era in Afghanistan and the beginning of a new, uncertain one.

Here are the main developments from the last few hours:

• The US has completed its withdrawal from Afghanistan. After 20 years of fighting, the country is now under Taliban rule
• US forces and its allies were able to evacuate about 123,000 civilians including 6,000 American citizens, since 14 August
• But many Afghans who worked for these countries weren't able to get out
• General Frank McKenzie who oversaw the US mission called it the largest “non-combatant” evacuation mission in the US military’s history
• As the last American planes departed, celebratory gunfire rang out at Kabul airport and there were reports of other Taliban celebrations in the streets
• With the Americans gone, this is now a new, uncertain period for women, children, and human rights supporters under Taliban rule
• There is widespread anxiety about what the Taliban government will look like, and how it will operate with a hamstrung economy.
• America’s last day also saw violence.
• The US said it intercepted several rockets that were fired at the airport. Islamic State-Khorosam has claimed responsibility for the attack
• And an Afghan family of 10, including six children, was reportedly killed in an errant US military strike on Sunday. The US says it is investigating.
• All American representation has left Kabul. The US will now set up a diplomatic office for Afghanistan in Doha, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said

Frank Gardner
BBC Security Correspondent

Image source, Getty Images

Details are emerging of a desperate, failed attempt to rescue dozens of Afghan musicians from the country’s National Institute of Music.

Around 260 Afghan musicians and their families, including an all-girl orchestra and 140 children, had decided to leave, taking their country’s musical heritage with them.

The Taliban disapproves of nearly all forms of music and their officials had arrived at the music school where they played and reportedly damaged their instruments.

A US benefactor raised the money to charter a plane to bring the musicians out, and Portugal offered to take them all in.

A team of volunteers working on both sides of the Atlantic had been trying non-stop for a week to get them out, calling in favours with high-ranking US and British generals.

In hot, cramped buses the musicians and their families waited for 17 hours this past weekend, moving from one airport gate to the other, waiting for the permission to come through.

It never came. At the last minute US soldiers refused them access to Kabul airport.

After Thursday’s deadly bomb attack at the airport, security at the gates had tightened.

Although the musicians were just yards from safety and a plane out, the gates shut - leaving them behind to a dangerous future.

Major General Chris Donahue, commander of the US Army 82nd Airborne Division, XVIII Airborne Corps, has made history as the final US soldier to leave Afghan soil.

He boarded a C-17 cargo plane at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, leaving the country at 15:29 EDT - midnight, 31 August, in Kabul.

This signalled the end to America's nearly 20-year involvement in Afghanistan.

Four US presidents have overseen America's presence in Afghanistan over the past two decades.

It was George W Bush who sent forces in back in 2001 after the terror attacks of 9/11.

Barack Obama dealt with the conflict throughout his two terms, authorising a surge of US troops.

Donald Trump promised to bring those Americans home and signed a deal with the Taliban.

It fell to Joe Biden to execute that withdrawal and he oversaw for the mass evacuation we've seen over the past two weeks.

How they handled the conflict was shaped by conditions on the ground, but also by their distinctive views on American values and interests.

A presidential historian and national security expert assess how they will be remembered.

Image source, Getty Images

US civil aircraft are “prohibited from operating at any altitude over much of Afghanistan” now that the US military has withdrawn from Kabul, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) says.

A “lack of air traffic services and a functional civil aviation authority in Afghanistan, as well as ongoing security concerns,” were the reasons given.

The FAA said US civil operators “may continue to use one high-altitude jet route near the far eastern border for overflights” and any pilot that wants to fly into or out of Afghanistan must get prior permission from the FAA.

Barbara Plett Usher
BBC News, Washington

Here at the State Department, diplomats have accomplished a lot, moving heaven and earth to get as many people out of Kabul as possible in the past two weeks. That mission will continue with diplomatic means now that the military is gone, carried out by people armed with skill and dedication.

President Biden said the mission was accomplished years ago, with the killing of Osama bin Laden and the degrading of Al Qaeda.

He said he would no longer put American troops in the middle of a civil war.

But I remember hearing such language years ago, not so long after the 2001 invasion, when I was based in the region. Journalists and analysts there said the Americans had joined one side of a civil war against the Taliban. The US should not have treated the Taliban like Al Qaeda, I was told. They are Islamist fighters but not international terrorists.

I’m thinking of that now. There’s no question the US mission empowered those oppressed by the Taliban. But twenty years later, it’s the Taliban that’s celebrating.

Image source, Reute

The US will only engage with the Taliban government if it is in “our vital national interest”, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said.

He said Washington will not work with the Taliban “on the basis of trust or faith” but on what it does with respect to its commitments for free travel for Afghans, protecting the rights of different groups including women, and preventing terror groups from gaining a stronghold.

"Any legitimacy will have to be earned,” he said.

The news conference has now ended.

US Secretary of State Blinken says that while the US has suspended its diplomatic presence in Kabul, transferring operations to Doha, the US will continue its “relentless efforts” to help Americans, and Afghans with US passports, to leave Afghanistan if they want to.

“We will hold the Taliban to their commitment for free passage,” he said in a news conference.

US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken calls the withdrawal from Afghanistan a “massive miilitary, diplomatic and humanitarian undertaking” and one of the most challenging the US has ever carried out.

He says more than 123,000 people have been safely flown out of Afghanistan, including 6,000 US citizens.