C M Y K Nxxx,2021-08-31,A,001,Bs-4C,E2

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VOL. CLXX ... No. 59,167 © 2021 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, TUESDAY, AUGUST 31, 2021 $3.00 U.S. FORCES LEAVE KABUL; EVACUATION ENDS A Solemn Pullout Taliban Cheer as in a Lost Fight’s Longest War Last Hours Concludes

By THOMAS GIBBONS-NEFF By ADAM NOSSITER The end of the ’ and ERIC SCHMITT longest war was unceremonious The last United States forces — trash blowing across the sin- left late Monday, end- gle airstrip of Kabul’s interna- ing a 20-year occupation that be- tional airport, Afghans lingering gan shortly after Al Qaeda’s at- outside the gates, NEWS tacks on 9/11, cost over $2 trillion, ANALYSIS still hoping in vain took more than 170,000 lives and for evacuation, ultimately failed to defeat the Tal- Taliban firing victoriously into iban, the Islamist militants who al- the night sky. lowed Al Qaeda to operate there. In its final days, it was two U.S. Five American C-17 cargo jets Marines shaking hands with flew out of Hamid Karzai Interna- Taliban fighters in the dim glow tional Airport in Kabul just before of the domestic terminal. It was midnight, the officials said, com- lines of starved and dehydrated pleting a hasty evacuation that evacuees boarding gray planes left behind tens of thousands of Af- that took them to uncertain ghans desperate to flee the coun- futures. It was the Taliban’s try, including former members of leadership dictating its terms, as the security forces and many who a generation of Afghans pon- held valid visas to enter the dered the end of 20 years of United States. some kind of expanded hope. “A new chapter of America’s en- It was highway overpasses gagement with Afghanistan has and park benches stretched begun,” Secretary of State Antony across the United States, named J. Blinken said Monday evening. in honor of the war’s dead. “It’s one in which we will lead with The end, at least for the Ameri- our diplomacy. The military mis- cans and their Western allies, sion is over.” JIM HUYLEBROEK FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES came on a Monday after the But the war prosecuted by four Airborne celebrations by the Taliban early Tuesday in Kabul, Afghanistan, after the last American forces departed the country. thousands of U.S. troops defend- presidents over two decades, ing Hamid Karzai International which gave Afghans a shot at de- Airport flew out in waves, one lumbering transport plane after mocracy and freed many women another until none were left, in to pursue education and careers, the final hours of the lost war. failed in nearly every other goal. Rescuers Fan Out as Ida Puts One Million in Dark Unlike the Soviets defeated Ultimately, the Americans handed before them, the Americans’ legacy was not a landscape lit- 300,000 Lack Water tered with the destroyed hulks of As Floods Crept Up, Nothing to Do but Wait for Daylight armored vehicles. Instead, they and now the village, along with Coast waded out of flooded com- left all the arms and equipment — Levees Hold in needed to supply the Taliban, the This article is by Richard Fausset, much of the southeastern Louisi- munities on Monday and sur- ana bayou area, was underwater. veyed the damage left by one of victors, for years to come, the Rick Rojas and Patricia Mazzei. product of two decades and $83 The authorities had rescued the most fearsome hurricanes to JEFFERSON PARISH, La. — billion training and equipping an more than 70 people in Jean La- strike the region since Katrina 16 Roque pulled his Chevy Afghan military and police forces years ago. New Orleans and its This article is by Katy Reckdahl, J. pickup truck onto the last stretch fitte and the surrounding commu- that collapsed in the face of poor hardened storm infrastructure David Goodman and Edgar San- of highway outside of town that nities, said Cynthia Lee Sheng, the leadership and dwindling U.S. appeared to have held up, though doval. was not inundated by water on Jefferson Parish president, after support. the city had no electricity. But with NEW ORLEANS — Rescue Monday, hauling an airboat. Hur- eight feet of water overtopped lev- Afghanistan has once more parts of still unreach- JIM HUYLEBROEK FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES teams fanned out across Louisi- ricane Ida had turned the road ees, sending several hundred peo- completed a cycle that has re- UNINTENDED DEATHS Ten people ana on Monday searching for peo- into a makeshift boat launch, and ple into attics and onto roofs. At able, the full extent of the wreck- peatedly defined the past 40 ple left stranded in the aftermath Mr. Roque was on a mission to find least one person, an older woman, age remained unclear. years of violence and upheaval: were killed, family members of Hurricane Ida, even as New Or- his relatives. died in her home, Ms. Lee Sheng “It’s never been as bad as it is For the fifth time since the Soviet say, in a U.S. drone strike in leans emerged from its most seri- His aunt and uncle, Diane and said. The parish had received this time,” said Jesse Touro, 62, invasion in 1979, one order has Kabul on Sunday. Page A6. ous onslaught since Hurricane Buddy Nolan, had ridden out the more than 200 calls for rescue who was rescued from Jean La- collapsed and another has risen. since Sunday. fitte after riding out storms in Katrina confident that its levees fierce Category 4 storm at home in What has followed each of those the country back to the same mili- had held. the hardy fishing village of Jean Across the path of Ida’s destruc- town for the past 12 years. He times has been a descent into sounded exhausted as he rode a tants they drove from power in While city residents could take Lafitte. No one had heard from the tion, the weathered and storm- vengeance, score-settling and, 2001. a measure of relief at having Nolans since Sunday morning, weary people of the northern Gulf Continued on Page A18 eventually, another cycle of Jubilant Taliban fighters and disorder and war. dodged a catastrophic flood, sev- their supporters reveled in vic- eral surrounding communities re- It is up to the Taliban, now, to tory as the news became clear. decide whether they will perpet- mained cut off by the storm, with Celebratory gunfire broke out the extent of the devastation in uate the cycle of vengeance, as across the city in the predawn those areas still coming into focus. they did upon seizing power from hours on Tuesday in Kabul, the arc More than a million people, in- a group of feuding warlords in of tracer rounds lighting up the cluding most of New Orleans, 1996, or will truly embrace the night sky. were left without electricity, more new path that their leaders have “The last American soldiers de- than 300,000 were without water, promised in recent days: one of and some 2,000 were in shelters, acceptance and reconciliation. parted from Kabul airport, and officials said. Nearly 20 years have passed our country has achieved a full in- dependence, thanks to God,” Zabi- New Orleans did not have a since Osama bin Laden and Al functioning 911 system for more Qaeda executed the Sept. 11, hullah Mujahid, the Taliban than 12 hours on Monday, leaving 2001, terrorist attacks on the spokesman, said on Twitter. officials to advise those in need of United States and President Control of the airport was left in emergency assistance to go to George W. Bush announced that the hands of the Taliban, who said their nearest fire station. the United States would invade they were still working on the At least three deaths have been Afghanistan as the first act in a shape of their new government. attributed to the storm, officials global war against terrorism. At the airport, where scenes of said: A man died while driving in Now, the United States is con- mass desperation and carnage New Orleans; a woman was found tending with how to define its this past week became indelible dead in the fishing village of Jean relationship with the same Islam- images of the Americans’ final Lafitte, south of the city; and a ist rulers it toppled in 2001 — days, only a few hundred Afghans man was killed in Prairieville, again a question of vengeance or still waited at the gates on Mon- about 20 miles southeast of Baton acceptance — and how to try to day night as the last flights de- Rouge, where a tree fell on a head off the resurgence of any parted. house. international terrorist threat The war began under President All across southeastern Louisi- rising from Afghanistan. George W. Bush as a hunt for Al ana, officials and volunteers re- Now, there are smaller Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, the sponded, sometimes in boats, to EDMUND D. FOUNTAIN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES prospects of airstrikes in the Qaeda leader who oversaw the 9/ calls from residents stranded in The authorities had rescued more than 70 people from Jean Lafitte, La., and the surrounding areas. Continued on Page A7 Continued on Page A6 houses swamped in the rising wa- ters. In Jefferson Parish alone, the authorities rescued more than 70 people from flooded neighbor- hoods. Putin Opponents Are Given a Grim Choice: Go West Into Exile or East Into Prison But the fate of many others re- mained unclear as rescuers strug- Putin’s two-decade rule turned dozens of dissidents and journal- could go either west or east — into Gudkov, a popular Moscow oppo- gled to reach those who had By ANTON TROIANOVSKI into a torrent this year. Opposition ists believed to have departed this exile or to a Siberian prison camp. sition politician who fled in June. stayed home to ride out the storm. figures, their aides, rights activ- year. Taken together, experts say, Now, as then, the Kremlin appears “And if you can’t squeeze them Gov. John Bel Edwards of Louisi- MOSCOW — Evoking the dark ists and even independent jour- it is the biggest wave of political to be betting that forcing high-pro- out, throw them in jail.” ana said he expected the death toll era of Soviet repression, Russian nalists are increasingly being giv- emigration in Russia’s post-Soviet file critics out of the country is less On Aug. 7, Lyubov Sobol, the to rise “considerably.” politicians and journalists are be- en a simple choice: flee or face history. of a headache than imprisoning most prominent ally of Mr. Na- Hospitals in the state, already ing driven into exile in growing prison. This year’s forced departures them, and that Russians abroad valny who had remained inside strained by a surge of Covid-19 pa- numbers. A top ally of the imprisoned op- recall a tactic honed by the K.G.B. are easy to paint as traitors in ca- Russia, flew to Turkey, pro-Krem- tients, braced for an influx of peo- The steady stream of politically position leader Aleksei A. Na- during the last decades of the So- hoots with the West. lin television channels reported. ple injured in the storm. Louisiana motivated emigration that had ac- valny left Russia this month, state viet Union, when the secret police “Their strategy is: First, Earlier this month, a court sen- Continued on Page A18 companied President Vladimir V. media said, adding her to a list of would tell some dissidents they squeeze them out,” said Dmitri G. Continued on Page A9

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