Photograph in night vision optics shows: Major General Chris Donahue — the last American to leave Afghanistan

In a hurried end to its 20 years of war in Afghanistan, the US evacuated its last troops from the Kabul international airport on Monday night. In a photo shared by the Department of Defense, Army Major General Chris Donahue was the last US soldier to step out of Afghanistan.

A photograph using night vision optics showed General Chris Donahue, commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, stepping on board a transport plane as what the XVIII Airborne Corps called the last soldier to leave Kabul. With his departure ended the two weeks of hurried evacuation by the US and Nato allies from Afghanistan.

The US had set August 31 as the deadline for the pullout of its troops from Kabul. According to estimates, more than 122,000 people have been airlifted out of Kabul since August 14, a day before the Taliban took over Kabul.

After the last US evacuation flight took off from Kabul, celebratory gunfire rang out in the city as the Taliban proclaimed “full independence” for Afghanistan.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said early Tuesday that “American soldiers left the Kabul airport, and our nation got its full independence.”

The 20-year conflict took the lives of nearly 2,500 US troops and an estimated 240,000 Afghans and cost some $2 trillion.

Perilous evacuation

After August 15, the US and its Western allies scrambled to airlift their citizens as well as translators, local embassy staff, civil rights activists, journalists and other at-risk Afghans out of Kabul.

The evacuations became even more perilous when a suicide bomb attack claimed by Islamic State-Khorasan — enemy of both the West and the Taliban – killed 13 US service members and over 170 Afghans near the Kabul airport.

Again on Monday, rockets were fired at Kabul airport but they were intercepted by US anti-missile defences.

(With inputs from Reuters)