A reporter from Afghanistan broke down in tears and became so distressed that she forgot her question during Monday’s press briefing with Pentagon spokesman John Kirby.
“The Taliban came, and they took off my flag,” the reporter said. “Everybody is upset, especially women. And I forgot my question … where is my president?”
Taliban fighters took over the Presidential Palace in Kabul after former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled the country.
“President Biden said that president Ghani knows he has to fight for us people. They have to do everything and we were able to financially help them. But we don’t have any president, we don’t have anything,” the reporter said. “The Afghan people don’t know what to do. Women have a lot of achievements in Afghanistan. I had a lot of achievements. I left from the Taliban like 20 years ago. Now we go back to the first step again.” (RELATED: A ‘Mistake That Will Haunt Us For Decades’: McCarthy Calls For Biden Admin To Be Investigated Amid Afghanistan Collapse)
Kirby said that he can’t speak for the former Afghan president but understands “the anxiety and the fear and the pain.”
“Nobody here at the Pentagon is happy about the images here that we’ve seen coming out in the last few days,” Kirby added. “And we’re all mindful of the kind of governance that the Taliban is capable of.”
President Joe Biden ordered troops to withdraw from Afghanistan by Sept. 11. Since then, the Taliban has managed to effectively take control of Afghanistan, and concerning reports have emerged about the rights of women and girls in Taliban-controlled areas. Some women have already been ordered to wear burqas, a veil-like item that completely covers women from head to toe, in Taliban-controlled areas, The Guardian reported.
Commercial flights were reportedly shut down after gunfire erupted at the Kabul airport, and harrowing videos showed people clinging to planes and falling to their deaths in a desperate attempt to escape. Videos showed crowds chasing planes as they moved down the tarmac.