Taliban Declare War Is Over: Claim Victory from Kabul Airport Tarmac

Taliban fighters stood on Kabul international airport’s tarmac Tuesday morning and declared victory just hours after the final U.S. troop withdrawal brought the curtain down on America’s longest war.

Clad in captured American camouflage uniforms, the Taliban envoys grinned broadly while holding weapons and assorted sophisticated military paraphenalia left behind by allied forces as they declared to the world Afghanistan is now under their total control.

“Afghanistan is finally free,” Hekmatullah Wasiq, a top Taliban official, told the Associated Press on the tarmac. “The military and civilian side (of the airport) are with us and in control. Hopefully, we will be announcing our Cabinet. Everything is peaceful. Everything is safe.”

Wasiq also urged the nation of 38 million people to return to work and reiterated the Taliban pledge offering a general amnesty. “People have to be patient,” he said. “Slowly we will get everything back to normal. It will take time.”