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Thousands of Afghans desperate to escape the Taliban’s return to power flooded the tarmac at Hamid Karzai International Airport on Monday, as evacuation efforts descended into chaos.
Videos on social media showed hundreds of people swarming the tarmac as US military transport aircraft took off, with some even clinging on to the planes as they sped down the runway.
Other videos showed people falling from the aircraft as they climbed away from the Afghan capital.
With land borders now under the control of the insurgents, the airport is the last remaining exit point and there are fears that option may close soon.
US soldiers sent in to try to provide some security at the airport killed two armed men who brandished weapons at them, American media reported.
The US is sending another 1,000 troops to help safeguard the airport, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said, aimed at bringing a semblance of order to evacuations.
Mr Kirby said the US had suspended flights until the situation could be brought under control.
In a video for local news, former president Hamid Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah appeared together in a video and spoke of efforts to bring the situation in Afghanistan back to normal.
Mr Karzai and Mr Abdullah said that along with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, they are in talks with the Taliban leadership to achieve countrywide peace and security. Their main effort is to maintain calm in Kabul, they said.
US President Joe Biden was due to give a national address on the crisis in Afghanistan on Monday.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said her country must urgently evacuate as many people as it could from Afghanistan, for whose safety it is responsible.
Speaking at a closed-door meeting of her Christian Democrat party on Monday, Ms Merkel said: "We are witnessing difficult times. Now we must focus on the rescue mission."
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Afghan women, holding placards, gather to demand the protection of women's rights in front of the Presidential Palace in Kabul, Afghanistan. -
A person holds the flag of Afghanistan during a protest against support for the Taliban, in Berlin, Germany. -
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid speaks at his first news conference in Kabul. -
Taliban fighters stand guard outside the Green Zone where most of the embassies are situated. -
Afghan security forces patrol on humvee vehicle along a road in Bazarak town of Panjshir province. -
Schoolgirls sit in a schoolyard in Herat. -
Afghans wait outside the Hamid Karzai International Airport to flee the country. -
A Taliban fighter raises their flag on a vehicle as they patrol in Kandahar. -
French citizens and their Afghan colleagues wait to board a French military transport plane at the airport in Kabul after the Taliban's stunning military takeover of the Afghanistan. -
French soldiers at the airport in Kabul as they arrive to help French citizens and their Afghan colleagues to flee after the Taliban takeover. -
A US Air Force C-17 Globemaster III transport aircraft filled with about 640 Afghans fleeing to Qatar from Kabul, Afghanistan. -
Crowds on the tarmac of Kabul International Airport, Afghanistan. Several people were reportedly killed at the airport on August 16 as Afghans tried to hang on to a moving US military plane leaving the airport. -
A satellite photo shows swarms of people on the tarmac at Kabul International Airport, also known as Hamid Karzai International Airport. Afghans rushed on to the tarmac of the capital's airport on Monday as thousands tried to flee the country after the Taliban seized power with stunning speed. -
A traffic jam outside Kabul International Airport, Afghanistan after Taliban co-founder Abdul Ghani Baradar declared victory and an end to the decades-long war in the country. President Ashraf Ghani fled and conceded that the insurgents had won the 20-year war. -
Qari Muhammad Hanif, centre, director of the Taliban's cultural and Information department, talks to journalists in Jalalabad, Afghanistan. -
Humvee vehicles from the Afghan Security Forces in Panjshir province, Afghanistan. -
Thousands of Afghans rushed to Hamid Karzai International Airport in an attempt to flee the Afghan capital, Kabul. -
Afghans on the tarmac at Kabul airport in Kabul after a swift end to the 20-year war in the country. Thousands of people mobbed the city's airport trying to flee the group's rule. -
A US soldier keeps close watch on Afghan passengers at Hamid Karzai International Airport, Kabul. Thousands of people packed the airport trying to flee Taliban rule. -
Passengers sit inside a plane as they wait to leave the runway of Kabul after the stunningly swift end of Afghanistan’s 20-year war. -
People climb on top of a plane in Kabul. -
People try to enter Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan. -
People cross the boundary wall of Hamid Karzai International Airport to flee the country after rumours that foreign countries were removing people even without visas. -
Taliban fighters stand guard along a roadside near Zanbaq Square in Kabul. -
A Taliban fighter sits on his motorcycle by a road in Shahr-e Naw, Kabul. -
Talibs patrol the streets of Kabul as the militants take control of Afghanistan. after President Ashraf Ghani fled the country. -
Afghans gather on the asphalt at Hamid Karzai International Airport, Kabul. -
Afghans gather by the runway in Kabul as US soldiers stand guard. -
Taliban fighters on a police vehicle outside Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan. -
Baradar Akhund, a senior official of the Taliban, with a group of men, makes a video statement. -
Taliban fighters take control of the presidential palace in Kabul, after Afghanistan's President Ashraf Ghani fled the country. -
Passengers from Kabul arrive at Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi, India. -
Families on a motorway trying to flee Kabul. -
Afghan security forces on patrol in Kabul. -
People line up outside Azizi Bank to withdraw cash during a run on deposits. -
Taliban fighters use a captured Afghan security forces vehicle at a checkpoint in Herat. -
Ahmadullah Muttaqi, centre left, the Taliban's director for information and culture, addresses journalists. -
Police officers conduct their duties after the Taliban took control of Kandahar. -
People prepare to cross into Afghanistan, at Pakistan's Chaman border. Pakistani authorities reopened the border with Afghanistan on August 13 after it had been closed for several days. -
Afghans wait in long lines for hours to get visas at the Iranian embassy, in Kabul. -
Taliban fighters patrol after taking control of Jalalabad. -
Smoke rises near the US embassy in Kabul. Taliban fighters reached the outskirts of the Afghan capital on Sunday. -
Anti-missile decoy flares are used by US Black Hawk military helicopters, while a surveillance blimp flies over Kabul. -
An Afghan soldier keeps watch on a street in Kabul. -
Taliban fighters and local people gather in Jalalabad province, east of Kabul. -
Taliban fighters sit on an Afghan Army Humvee in Jalalabad province. -
Taliban fighters travel along a street in Jalalabad province. -
A US Chinook military helicopter flies over the US embassy in Kabul. -
Heavily armed Taliban fighters gather in eastern Laghman province. -
Militants wave a Taliban flag from the back of a pickup truck in Jalalabad. -
Taliban fighters drive through the streets of Laghman province. -
People head to the departures area of Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul as the Taliban approach the city. -
A man sells Taliban flags in western province Herat. -
Taliban fighters travel in an Afghan Army vehicle in Herat. -
Taliban forces patrol a street in Herat. -
Taliban militants raise their flag as they gather a day after taking control of key southern city Kandahar. -
Members of the Afghan security forces stand guard along the roadside in Panjshir province. -
Afghanistan's President Ashraf Ghani and acting defence minister Bismillah Khan Mohammadi visit a military site in Kabul. -
Internally displaced families from northern provinces take shelter in a public park in Kabul. -
Families that fled their homes because of fighting between the Taliban and Afghan security forces take shelter in a public park in Kabul. -
Many of those seeking safety in Kabul have been sleeping on the streets. -
Thousands of those internally displaced have been arriving in Kabul. -
Afghans have been waiting for hours in long queues outside the passport office in Kabul, with many people desperate to leave the country.
Those needing to leave included 2,500 Afghan support staff as well as human rights activists, lawyers and others whom the government sees as being at risk if they remain in Afghanistan, up to 10,000 altogether.
Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said Germany was seeking to evacuate as many people at risk as it could, and that Nato allies had misjudged the situation when they thought Afghan government forces could hold back the Taliban unaided.
"We want to get as many people out of the country as quickly as possible," Mr Maas told reporters outside the Foreign Ministry.
The Afghan ambassador to the UN, Ghulam Isaczai, called for a humanitarian corridor to be set up to allow Afghans to leave the country at an emergency UN Security Council meeting on Monday.
He said he was "speaking on behalf of millions of people in Afghanistan whose fate hangs in the balance" after the Taliban takeover.
The UN must call on the Taliban to cease targeted killings and revenge attacks, he said.
He asked the UN not to recognise a Taliban government and urged the international community to help humanitarian support reach the Afghan people.
British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said the Taliban takeover was a "failure of the international community" and that Western military intervention in the country was incomplete.
"All of us know that Afghanistan is not finished. It's an unfinished problem for the world and the world needs to help it," he told the BBC.
HR McMaster, a former US national security adviser who was sacked by Donald Trump in 2018, accused his country of "wilful ignorance" over its failure to realise the Taliban would swiftly take control of Afghanistan.
Mr Wallace and Mr McMaster strongly criticised of a deal agreed to by Mr Trump during his time as president.
Under the deal, the US was to withdraw all of its troops by May 2021 in exchange for security guarantees from the militants.
The deal weakened the Afghan government and security forces and strengthened the Taliban, Mr McMaster said.
Meanwhile, Bahrain announced it would initiate consultations with the other Gulf Arab monarchies regarding the situation in Afghanistan in its capacity as current head of the Gulf Co-operation Council.
"The council of ministers has tasked the foreign minister to co-ordinate and consult with the GCC states regarding the developments in Afghanistan, in the framework of Bahraini presidency" of the group which also includes Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Oman, the kingdom's government media office said on Twitter.
