2021 Kabul Airlift

Significance

The 2021 Kabul airlift marked the operational conclusion of the US and NATO military presence in Afghanistan, carried out as the Taliban completed their rapid takeover of the country in August 2021. Conducted during the final stages of the troop withdrawal, the operation evacuated foreign nationals and some vulnerable Afghan citizens. The airlift became the closing act of the 2001–2021 war in Afghanistan, a conflict that had begun in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks and ended with the Taliban reasserting control over the country the original intervention had sought to transform.