Afghanistan: Taliban supporters hold mock funeral with coffins draped in US, UK and Nato flags
- Some of the crowd in the city of Khost held guns aloft, while others waved Taliban flags or snapped the procession on mobile phones
- ‘August 31 is our formal Freedom Day. On this day, American occupying forces and Nato forces fled the country,’ said Taliban official Qari Saeed Khosti
Taliban supporters paraded coffins draped with American and Nato flags in the eastern city of Khost on Tuesday, part of celebrations across the country following the withdrawal of the last US troops.
The mock funeral, in which coffins covered in French and British flags were also carried along the street through a large crowd, marked the end of a 20-year war and a hasty and humiliating exit for Washington and its Nato allies.
Some of the crowd held guns aloft, while others waved Taliban flags or snapped the procession on mobile phones.
“August 31 is our formal Freedom Day. On this day, American occupying forces and Nato forces fled the country,” Taliban official Qari Saeed Khosti told local television station Zhman TV during its coverage of the event.
Footage from Khost was shared widely on social media on Tuesday alongside other videos of celebratory gunfire in the capital Kabul and a man dangling from a US-made Black Hawk helicopter circling above Afghanistan’s second city of Kandahar. Reuters could not verify all the videos.
