A Journalist and the Last Day of the Republic in Afghanistan
Reports of every kind kept pouring in one after another.
The Taliban stood at the gates of Kabul. Under the peace agreements they were not supposed to enter the capital, yet rumours were spreading that some of their groups had already been seen in parts of the city.
The entrance gate of the green zone is pictured after the evacuation in Kabul on August 15, 2021. (Photo by WAKIL KOHSAR / AFP)
From the notes in the book #365Moments
- Tamim Hamid
On the morning of 15 August 2021, as I left home, every taxi driver on the street was complaining about the unusual crowds in Shahr-e-Naw and Wazir Akbar Khan.
I walked toward Wazir Akbar Khan. People looked frightened. Cars stood bumper to bumper and moved at a crawl. Large crowds gathered in front of every bank, and the ATMs had run out of cash.
Along the way, messages and phone calls arrived from every direction, each bringing strange and unexpected news.
About an hour later I reached the Tolo News office in Wazir Akbar Khan. Inside the newsroom, unlike previous days, panic had taken hold and almost nothing was running smoothly. Reports of every kind kept pouring in one after another.
The Taliban stood at the gates of Kabul. Under the peace agreements they were not supposed to enter the capital, yet rumours were spreading that some of their groups had already been seen in parts of the city.
Time raced by, and the sheer volume of incoming news made the pressure even greater.
In the midst of it all came the report: “The president and those close to him have left the Arg by two helicopters.”
A few of us who had received this information told the news coordinator. Deciding what to do proved extremely difficult. The senior managers were outside the country, so no immediate decision could be taken.
After lengthy discussion and hesitation, the news was finally released—first on the Tolo News Twitter page—in this brief form:
“Breaking – Two sources tell Tolo News that President Ghani has left the country.”
At the end of that working day, when a few colleagues and I were heading home in one of the office cars, Kabul had effectively fallen.
No one remained at any of the security checkpoints. The streets, so crowded that morning, were now completely empty, and a heavy silence had settled over everything.
Although reports of the Taliban’s presence in some parts of the city had circulated during the day, the group issued a statement insisting it would abide by the peace agreements and would not enter Kabul.
That promise did not last long. On the evening of 15 August the Taliban released another statement announcing their decision to enter Kabul—supposedly to prevent chaos.
Around 9 p.m., images of the Taliban entering the Presidential Palace were broadcast, and after twenty consecutive years the era of the Republic came to an end.
