Video: https://www.dropbox.com/s/gkpd45k8em62d5l/VRP58981.mp4?dl=0
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid addressed the Taliban’s special forces hours after the end of the chaotic U.S. withdrawal at an airport in Kabul on August 30.
Mujahid, leading a group of Taliban officials onto the tarmac, was seen grinning victoriously and speaking to the soldiers on the runway of the Hamid Karzai International Airport on August 31. The Taliban militants listened to the speech attentively, interjecting with cheers of ‘Allahu Akbar’.
Mujahid said: ‘Congratulations to Afghanistan… this victory belongs to us all. America was defeated, they could not achieve their targets through military operations.’
The last of the foreign forces left one minute before midnight struck in the Afghan capital on Monday.
Marine General Frank McKenzie, commander of the U.S. Central Command, announced the completion of the pull-out which he said evacuated more than 123,000 civilians from Afghanistan.
He said: ‘There’s a lot of heartbreak associated with this departure. We did not get everybody out that we wanted to get out. But I think if we’d stayed another 10 days, we wouldn’t have gotten everybody out.’
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid previously said America’s withdrawal signals the start of Afghanistan’s ‘complete independence’.
He said: ‘At 12 o’clock tonight, the last American troops left Kabul airport, on which account Afghanistan was completely liberated and independent.’