Days after laying siege to Kabul, a group of Taliban fighters were seen taking joy rides at an amusement park in Afghanistan's capital.
Videos shared by a local journalist showed Taliban fighters riding bumper cars while holding their guns. Another video, that went viral on social media, showed insurgents riding play horses in a merry-go-round and talking animatedly among themselves.
The Taliban took control of the presidential palace in Kabul on Sunday hours after President Ashraf Ghani fled Afghanistan, reportedly for a central Asian nation, literally establishing its rule in the embattled country two decades after they were ousted by the US military.
Monday's scenes from an amusement park in Kabul were in sharp and ironic contrast to chaotic visuals that surfaced from the city's international airport, where thousands of panic-stricken Afghans gathered in a desperate attempt to leave the country, even as the administration shut the civilian airspace over Afghanistan.
{{/usCountry}}Monday's scenes from an amusement park in Kabul were in sharp and ironic contrast to chaotic visuals that surfaced from the city's international airport, where thousands of panic-stricken Afghans gathered in a desperate attempt to leave the country, even as the administration shut the civilian airspace over Afghanistan.
{{/usCountry}}Horrific videos widely circulated in media showed people running on the tarmac while some clung to the undercarriage of a US military aircraft as it taxied on the runway. Local media reported that at least three people fell to their death trying to escape as stowaways in a C-17 Globemaster III transport aircraft of the US air force.
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The chaos at the runway, now under the control of the US troops, prompted a temporary halt in the evacuation process, only to resume early on Tuesday to ferry diplomats and civilians.
Even as the Taliban said no one would be “harmed”, and declared an "amnesty" across the country, urging women to join their "government", thousands of people are desperate to flee the country as many Afghans were apprehensive of the Taliban rule and a return of the draconian practices. During the Taliban's previous rule between 1996 and 2001, women could not work and kangaroo courts meted out ‘punishments’ such as public stoning, whipping and hanging.
On Monday, the UN Secretary-General António Guterres urged the Taliban to exercise utmost restraint to protect lives and called on the UN Security Council to use all tools at its disposal to suppress global terrorist threats in Afghanistan and ensure human rights are not violated.