Witnesses describe scenes as suicide bombers target civilians and US soldiers during evacuation effort
Another long, hot afternoon in Kabul was drawing to a close. Thousands of foreigners and Afghans – many in family groups with young children – still hoping to flee the capital, thronged the heavily guarded gates of Hamid Karzai international airport, desperate to board one of the last planes out.
The atmosphere was febrile: hours earlier, shots were fired to disperse an angry crowd as an Italian military transport plane carrying nearly 100 Afghan civilians took off, one of hundreds of foreign and private evacuation flights over the past 12 days.