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The 2020–2021 US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan concluded the United States' twenty-year military involvement in the country. The withdrawal followed a 2020 agreement between the first Trump administration and the Taliban under which US and allied forces were to leave Afghanistan. Joe Biden continued the withdrawal after becoming president in 2021. As foreign forces departed, the Taliban launched a major offensive against the US-trained Afghan military, capturing Kabul on 15 August. This photograph, taken by US Army photographer Alexander Burnett on 30 August, shows Major General Chris Donahue, commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, just before boarding a C-17 cargo plane at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul. Donahue was the final US soldier to leave Afghanistan, completing the US troop withdrawal.

Photograph credit: Alexander Burnett

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