Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN)Little by little, life appears to be creeping back to normal in Kabul, even though no one seem to know quite what this new normal -- life under the Taliban -- will look like once the dust settles and the last US troops leave the country.
Kabul's streets were once again busy with traffic on Wednesday morning, with residents -- most of them men -- out and about. And while not all shops were open, basic services were up and running. Bakeries were making bread, and food and fuel were available to buy.
Armed Taliban fighters were certainly still around, patrolling the city in pickup trucks, but there were far fewer checkpoints operating, compared to recent days. Roadblocks that had been manned by dozens of fighters appeared to have been abandoned, the flow of people and vehicles less restricted than in previous days.
The lighter presence of the Taliban in the streets of the Afghan capital on Wednesday was somewhat in line with the group's push to paint a new, less intimidating picture of themselves.
Taliban leaders have been been saying for days that ordinary Afghans are not in danger now that they've taken over the country, urging government employees to return to work.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid on Tuesday promised that there would be no retribution against those who had opposed the Taliban in the past.
Photos: The Taliban take over Afghanistan
A man reacts as he watches Taliban fighters use violence to control a crowd of Afghans who were gathered outside the airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, hoping for a way out of the country on Tuesday, August 17. At least a dozen people were wounded in the incident, according to the Los Angeles Times.
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A man carries a bloodied child as a wounded woman lies on the street after Taliban fighters fired guns and lashed out with whips and other objects to control the crowd outside the airport on August 17. "The violence was indiscriminate," Los Angeles Times photographer Marcus Yam told CNN. "I even watched one Taliban fighter, after firing some shots in the general direction of the crowd, smiling at another Taliban fighter — as though it were a game to them or something."
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Photos: The Taliban take over Afghanistan
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid addresses reporters in Kabul on August 17. "We don't want Afghanistan to be a battlefield," he said. "Today the fighting is over. ... Whoever was against the opposition has been given blanket amnesty." Those promises have been met with skepticism by the international community. It was the Taliban's first news conference since they took control of Kabul.
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People climb atop a plane at the airport in Kabul on Monday, August 16. Hundreds of people were on the tarmac, trying to find a way out of the country.
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Afghans rush to the airport in Kabul as they try to flee the capital on August 16.
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Photos: The Taliban take over Afghanistan
A US soldier points a gun while working to secure Kabul's airport on August 16. US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin approved the deployment of 1,000 more American troops into the country due to the deteriorating security situation, a defense official told CNN, upping the number of troops in the country to 6,000.
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Photos: The Taliban take over Afghanistan
Afghans sit on the tarmac as they wait to leave the airport in Kabul on August 16.
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Afghans run alongside a US Air Force transport plane on the runway of the Kabul airport on August 16. Video showed people clinging to the fuselage of the aircraft as it taxied.
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Photos: The Taliban take over Afghanistan
This satellite photo shows swarms of people on the tarmac at Kabul's international airport on August 16.
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Photos: The Taliban take over Afghanistan
Taliban fighters sit inside the presidential palace in Kabul on Sunday, August 15. The palace was handed over to the Taliban after being vacated hours earlier by Afghan government officials.
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Photos: The Taliban take over Afghanistan
An Afghan soldier, who didn't want to use his name, is seen at an outpost in Kabul on August 15. He looked at the city below and said, "This is like a quick death," referring to the fall of Kabul. He said it was going to be a hard moment for him when he removes his uniform permanently after 10 years of service.
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British forces arrive in Kabul on August 15 to assist British nationals in evacuating the city.
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A Taliban flag is seen on a motorcycle ridden by a Taliban fighter on August 15.
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A US military helicopter flies above the US Embassy in Kabul on August 15. The embassy was evacuated as Taliban fighters entered the city.
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Photos: The Taliban take over Afghanistan
Taliban fighters ride a Humvee near a Kabul roundabout on August 15.
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US President Joe Biden holds a virtual meeting with senior officials and members of his national security team on August 15. Biden was working from Maryland's Camp David, the presidential retreat where he was vacationing at the time.
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Evacuees crowd the interior of a US Air Force transport plane as they travel from Kabul to Qatar on August 15.
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A traffic jam is seen in Kabul on August 15 as some Afghans were looking to flee the city.
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Photos: The Taliban take over Afghanistan
Taliban fighters are seen in Kandahar, Afghanistan, on Saturday, August 14. The Taliban had seized Kandahar, the country's second-largest city, and a number of other provincial capitals on Friday. The city, which lies in the south of the country, had been besieged by the Taliban for weeks. Many observers considered its fall as the beginning of the end for the country's government.
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People wait to cross the Afghan-Pakistani border at Chaman, Pakistan, on Friday, August 13. The border crossing was closed for several days before it was reopened.
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Displaced Afghans from the country's northern provinces arrive at a makeshift camp in Kabul on Tuesday, August 10. Provincial capitals in the north were among the first to fall to the Taliban.
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Shops in Kunduz, Afghanistan, are damaged after fighting between Taliban militants and Afghan military forces on August 8. Kunduz was the first major city to fall to the Taliban since they began their offensive in May.
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Hanif, who was struck in the temple by a stray bullet, and his older brother, Mohammed, are seen at the Mirwais Regional Hospital in Kandahar on August 5. Kandahar had been under siege for a month.
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An Afghan security officer stands guard at the site of a car bomb explosion in Kabul on August 4. A car bomb exploded near the home of Afghanistan's acting defense minister the day before. In the weeks prior, Kabul had largely been spared from the violence hitting other parts of Afghanistan.
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An Afghan woman and her children carry their belongings after fleeing their home in Kandahar on August 4.
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An Afghan militia fighter looks out for Taliban insurgents at an outpost in Afghanistan's Balkh Province on July 15.
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US Gen. Austin S. Miller, left, greets Gen. Bismillah Khan Mohammadi, Afghanistan's defense minister, during a change-of-command ceremony in Kabul on July 12. Miller, the top American general in Afghanistan, was stepping down, a symbolic moment as the United States neared the end of its 20-year-old war in the country.
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Photos: The Taliban take over Afghanistan
A member of the Afghan Special Forces drives a Humvee during a combat mission against the Taliban on July 11. Danish Siddiqui, the Reuters photographer who took this photo, was killed days later during clashes in Afghanistan. Siddiqui had been a photographer for Reuters since 2010, and he was the news agency's chief photographer in India. He was also part of a Reuters team that won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography covering Rohingya refugees fleeing Myanmar.
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A member of the Afghan Special Forces prays on a highway before a combat mission in Afghanistan's Kandahar province on July 11.
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An internally displaced Afghan girl peers out of a makeshift tent at a camp on the outskirts of Mazar-i-Sharif on July 8.
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Afghan commandos look out from a window at a home in Kunduz on July 6. The Taliban were moving rapidly to take over districts in northern Afghanistan.
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A member of Afghanistan's security forces walks at Bagram Air Base on July 5 after the last American troops departed the compound. It marked the end of the American presence at a sprawling compound that became the center of military power in Afghanistan.
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Photos: The Taliban take over Afghanistan
Hundreds of armed men attend a gathering on the outskirts of Kabul on June 23 to announce their support for Afghan security forces and say that they are ready to fight against the Taliban.
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A helicopter is loaded onto a US Air Force plane as American forces carry out their withdrawal from Afghanistan on June 16.
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US President Joe Biden, speaking from the White House Treaty Room on April 14, formally announces his decision to withdraw American troops from Afghanistan before September 11. "I am now the fourth American president to preside over an American troop presence in Afghanistan. Two Republicans. Two Democrats," Biden said. "I will not pass this responsibility to a fifth."
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Chaos and desperation
But while Kabul's city center appeared calm on Wednesday, the streets surrounding its airport were in chaos. Traffic was gridlocked, cars queuing bumper to bumper.
For days, thousands of Afghans have been crowding around Hamid Karzai International Airport, hoping to get out of the country they believe has become too dangerous for them.
Many of those waiting nearby say they worked for the Americans during the past two decades. They say they have the documents, the visas, the passports -- everything they were told they would need to leave the country. But the Taliban is turning them away.
A young man who said he had a US green card and a seat booked on a flight out of Afghanistan said the Taliban, firmly in control of the airport's gates, had turned him away.
Stuck 200 yards (182 meters) down the road, the man was desperately pointing to his phone, waving an email from the US embassy telling him what to do.
"I have a flight on August 20, this Friday, I already filled up the application with the US embassy and this is the email I got," the man told CNN, speaking in perfect English with a slight American accent.
"The Taliban say: 'We don't know, just go' ... They say we don't have flights ... but we do have flights," he said.
Shots could be heard coming from the direction of the airport nearly non-stop, as Taliban fighters fired their weapons to disperse the crowds trying to get inside the airport's perimeter; the Taliban were forcing them back, using sticks and makeshift whips to push people away.
The airport is the only way out for the thousands of Western personnel and their Afghan colleagues who are still stranded, three days after the Taliban took Kabul.
Roughly 4,500 US troops remain on the ground at the airport, according to Pentagon spokesman John Kirby. He said the airport "remains secure and open for flight operations."
Yet just outside its gates, chaos appears to be increasingly turning into violence.
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August 18, 2021 at 11:50PM
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Taliban keep low key presence on streets of Kabul - CNN
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