Transcript: US completes Afghanistan withdrawal

General Frank McKenzie put the nearly 20 years of war in Afghanistan into numbers at a Pentagon news briefing.

In the early morning hours of August 31, the last US military plane took off from Hamid Karzai International Airport, officially ending the US’s nearly 20-year-long war in Afghanistan. In a Pentagon news briefing, General Frank McKenzie, head of US Central Command, said the US had evacuated 79,000 people from Kabul, including 6,000 American citizens, since August 14, a day before the Taliban took control of the capital city. Celebratory gunfire was heard across Kabul following the US withdrawal. In a tweet, Anas Haqqani, a senior Taliban official said that “we made history again. The 20-year occupation of Afghanistan by the United States and NATO ended tonight.”