Plane collides with truck at LAX

US military forces facilitate the evacuation of thousands of people from Kabul airport, in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.

Afghans on Thursday hurry to escape Taliban rule, but Western officials said the group had made assurances that some evacuations would be permitted after next week's US withdrawal deadline.

Drivers of commercial buses, popularly called ‘Danfo', along the Oshodi-Apapa Expressway, are protesting over the incessant extortion they face from state officials. They are accusing the men of the Lagos State Environmental Sanitation and Special Offences Unit (Task Force) and officials of the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA) of extortion.

Islamic State suicide bombers attacked crowds of people gathered Thursday outside Kabul airport hoping to flee Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, killing dozens including 13 US troops, as President Joe Biden vowed to hunt down those responsible.

Family members Friday gather outside a hospital and collect bodies of their loved ones while others desperately seek information on missing relatives following the deadly twin blasts at Kabul airport. "One of my brothers was at the airport. He wanted to fly abroad. Unfortunately, he's missing after the back-to-back blasts," says one Kabul resident.

The hardline Islamist Taliban celebrate their total return to power with gunfire after the last US troops flew out of Afghanistan to end two decades of war. Images posted by Ahmadullah Muttaqi, the Chief of Taliban multimedia branch, cultural commission, show the Taliban entering Kabul airport after US forces abandoned the frenzied airlift that saw more than 123,000 people flee life after the group's takeover.

Hours after the final foreign forces flew out of Afghanistan, a group of Taliban leaders walked victorious through the airport, flanked by their elite "Badri 313" guards, to inspect what had been left behind. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid -- tipped to be minister of information when a new government is named -- led a group of officials onto the runway, his usual stoic expression replaced by a broad grin. The special forces unit posed for pictures, brandishing US M-16 rifles and flying the Taliban's white flag. The atmosphere was one of triumph and victory, but all around was evidence of the chaotic withdrawal of US troops after a 20-year occupation, and the hurried evacuation of more than 120,000 people fearful of the Taliban's return to power

Qatar's Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani says his country is working with Taliban to reopen Kabul airport "as soon as possible", during a joint press conference with his British counterpart Dominic Raab in Doha.

The education board for the Los Angeles Unified School District, the second biggest in the US, votes that children aged 12 or over who attend public schools in the city will have to be fully vaccinated against Covid-19 by the start of next year. This is the first such requirement by a major education board in the US.

One month after the Islamists' "unimaginable" takeover of Afghanistan's capital, US items left behind in the airport are the remnants of the two-decade American intervention that ended in an "unthinkable" exit.

A retired Boeing passenger jet has been hauled to the top of a seaside cliff in Bali to lure tourists to Indonesia's popular holiday island, which has been hard hit by Covid-19. More than a dozen workers used cranes to assemble parts of a Boeing 737 on a cliff near the Nyang Nyang beach this week. Felix Demin, the plane's new owner, is planning to convert the aircraft into tourist accommodation and expects it will become a popular photography spot.

Images show desperate scenes at the airport in Port-au-Prince as a group of migrants gathers around the plane they had just been deported on. After disembarking, the migrants forced their way back onto the runway and were left to pick up their personal belongings that had been dumped out onto the tarmac.