KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghanistan’s embattled president left the country yesterday, joining his fellow citizens and foreigners in a stampede fleeing the advancing Taliban and signalling the end of a 20-year Western experiment aimed at remaking Afghanistan.

The Taliban, who for hours had been on the outskirts of Kabul, announced soon after that they would move further into a city gripped by panic, where helicopters raced overhead throughout the day to evacuate personnel from the United States Embassy.

Smoke rose near the compound as staff destroyed important documents, and the American flag was lowered. Several other Western missions also prepared to pull their people out.

Afghans, fearing that the Taliban could reimpose the kind of brutal rule that all but eliminated women’s rights, rushed to leave the country as well, lining up at cash machines to withdraw their life savings. The desperately poor — who had left homes in the countryside for the presumed safety of the capital — remained in their thousands in parks and open spaces throughout the city.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken rejected comparisons to the Americans’ pull-out from Vietnam, as many watched in disbelief at the sight of helicopters landing in the embassy compound to take diplomats to a new outpost at Kabul international airport.

“This is manifestly not Saigon,” he said on ABC’s This Week.

The American ambassador was among those evacuated, said officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to discuss ongoing military operations. He was asking to return to the embassy, but it was not clear if he would be allowed to.

President Ashraf Ghani flew out of the country, two officials told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorised to brief journalists. Abdullah Abdullah, the head of the Afghan National Reconciliation Council, later confirmed that Ghani had left.

“The former President of Afghanistan left Afghanistan, leaving the country in this difficult situation,” Abdullah said. “God should hold him accountable.”

In a stunning rout, the Taliban seized nearly all of Afghanistan in just over a week, despite the billions of dollars spent by the US and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) over nearly two decades to build up Afghan security forces. Just days earlier, an American military assessment estimated it would be a month before the capital would come under insurgent pressure.

The fall of Kabul marks the final chapter of America’s longest war, which began after the September 11, 2001 terror attacks masterminded by al-Qaida’s Osama bin Laden, then harboured by the Taliban Government.

A US-led invasion dislodged the Taliban and beat them back, though America lost focus on the conflict in the chaos of the Iraq War.

For years the US has been looking for an exit from the war. Washington under then-President Donald Trump signed a deal with the Taliban in February 2020 that limited direct military action against the insurgents.

That allowed the fighters to gather strength and move quickly to seize key areas when US President Joe Biden announced his plans to withdraw all American forces by the end of this month.

Yesterday, the insurgents entered the outskirts of Kabul but initially remained outside of the city’s downtown. Meanwhile, Taliban negotiators in the capital discussed the transfer of power, said an Afghan official. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details of the closed-doors negotiations, described them as “tense”.

It remained unclear when that transfer would take place and who among the Taliban was negotiating. The negotiators on the Government side included former President Hamid Karzai, leader of Hizb-e-Islami political and paramilitary group Gulbudin Hekmatyar, and Abdullah, who has been a vocal critic of Ghani.

Karzai himself appeared in a video posted online, his three young daughters around him, saying he remained in Kabul.

The insurgents tried to calm residents of the capital, insisting their fighters wouldn’t enter people’s homes or interfere with businesses. They also said they’d offer an “amnesty” to those who worked with the Afghan Government or foreign forces.

“No one’s life, property, and dignity will be harmed, and the lives of the citizens of Kabul will not be at risk,” the insurgents said in a statement.

But there have been reports of revenge killings and other brutal tactics in areas of the country the Taliban have seized in recent days. One female journalist, weeping, sent voice messages to colleagues after armed men entered her apartment building and banged on her door.