‘First concern is to grow my beard’

Kabul's streets were deserted early yesterday, a day after Taliban insurgents took over the Afghanistan capital without a fight, but the airport was jammed with hundreds of civilians trying to flee.

Video posted social media showed hundreds of people scampering with their luggage toward the safety of the airport terminal with the sound of gunfire breaking out.

US troops deployed at the airport to safeguard the evacuation of US troops had fired in the air to deter hundreds of civilians running onto the tarmac to try to board a plane.

The nearby Wazir Akbar Khan embassy district was deserted with almost all diplomats and their families either flown out of the city or at the airport awaiting a flight. Government offices were also empty, residents said.

"It is strange to sit here and see empty streets, no more busy diplomatic convoys, big cars with guns mounted," said Gul Mohammed Hakim, one the city's ubiquitous naan (bread) makers who has a shop in the area.

"My first concern is to grow my beard and how to grow it fast," Hakim added. "I also checked with my wife if there were enough burqas for her and the girls."

During the Taliban's 1996-2001 rule, men were not permitted to trim their beards and women were required to wear the all-enveloping burqa cloak in public.