Desperate Kabul deals with new Taliban rulers: 'It’s like Saigon on steroids'

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Taliban's Afghanistan takeover is 'far worse' than fall of Saigon: Rep. Cheney

Rep. Liz Cheney says the situation in Afghanistan is a result of multiple administrations' policies.

"It’s like Saigon on steroids." That’s how leading Afghan businessman Saad Mohseni described the scene to us today in Afghanistan. Just hours after the Taliban entered the city completing their lightning-fast takeover of the country.   

Throughout the city, according to Fox journalists on the ground, Taliban fighters were seen on the streets, walking and patrolling, driving around in government vehicles, going home to home, basically making their presence known.

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For the public, the fighters are putting on an allegedly peaceful face. But most know their extreme fundamentalist rule might be felt soon.   

"It looks like a nightmare," Faridoon Azeen explained in an email to Fox News. He was a U.S. military translator still unable to get a visa out of the country. Now there’s a Taliban checkpoint outside of his apartment window. "I do believe I will be killed if I am captured," he wrote us.

A man pulls a girl to get inside Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan August 16, 2021. REUTERS/Stringer  NO RESALES. NO ARCHIVES     TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

Out at Kabul’s airport, thousands more are desperately trying to get a flight from what they fear could soon be a living hell. And that’s causing big problems for the US troops newly deployed there trying to organize evacuation flights. Reports of warning shots being fired at the desperate swarm of people, tear gas being shot into the crowds, lives lost, for the moment flights disrupted. All of this described to us by one eyewitness as a "true humanitarian crisis."

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Compared to that, the Taliban Kabul takeover looks downright peaceful. But again, those in the know have reason to fear. Like women and girls who were robbed of their rights last time the militants were in charge 20 years ago. We’ve talked recently to some who have dreaded the coming of this day. 

Referring to a Taliban takeover, leading Afghan woman's activist Shukria Barakzai told Fox News, "I think for women that means being back prisoner."

Also concerned: those in what has become a free media in Afghanistan. Now under the watchful eye of their apparent new censors. 

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Taliban fighters today swarmed into media chief Saad Mohseni’s Tolo News Kabul compound, seizing weapons.   

He — like many in Kabul — blames the abrupt withdrawal of U.S. troops for triggering the nightmare. "There are many people who are responsible for this disaster," he explained to us, "but the buck stops with Biden."

Where this new chapter in Afghanistan’s history ends is anyone’s guess.