Tear gas, guns used as crowd control at Kabul airport

Crowd at Kabul airport.
(Image credit: WAKIL KOHSAR/AFP via Getty Images)

A day after the Pentagon claimed to be restoring order at the international airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, military personnel on Friday used tear gas and fired guns into the air as means of controlling the large and chaotic crowd, The Wall Street Journal reports. It was not immediately clear as to what country the soldiers were from.

Troops are also moving just outside the airport's perimeter, surrounded by Taliban, "to disperse crowds and clear the way for families struggling to get in," the Journal reports. To reach the airport, Afghans and foreigners must pass through dangerous Taliban checkpoints, where fighters are firing into the air and using violence to control the sea of people.

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Brigid Kennedy

Brigid Kennedy worked at The Week from 2021 to 2023 as a staff writer, junior editor and then story editor, with an interest in U.S. politics, the economy and the music industry.