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(KABUL, Afghanistan) — A U.S. official has confirmed that human remains were found inside the wheel well of a C-17 military plane that had been swarmed by hundreds of people on the tarmac as it took off at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul.

The discovery was made upon landing at al Udeid Air Base in Qatar on Monday.

A dramatic video taken earlier Monday showed some people clinging to the plane as it taxied down the runway in Kabul.

A defense official said the individuals swarming the plane had breached the runway from the civilian side of the airport. At the airport in Kabul, there is a side for military operations and another side for commercial flights.

Air operations were suspended for hours at the airport Monday because of the crush of Afghan civilians desperate to leave Kabul. Operations resumed after the U.S. military, Turkish forces and other troops forcibility removed 15,000 Afghan civilians who had breached the runway, a U.S. official said.

The C-17 had landed on a runway at the airport earlier in the day with a load of cargo, according to the official. After landing, the pilots were surprised when the crew attempted to unload its cargo and it was rushed by hundreds of Afghan civilians. At that point, the aircrew decided it was not safe to unload and began taxiing to fly away to safety

U.S. Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said Tuesday the U.S. will soon have the capacity to evacuate 5,000 to 9,000 individuals a day now on a mix between commercial and military aircraft — but a lot of that depends on if the Taliban will allow those commercial planes to fly.

The White House said Tuesday that both sides of the airport are open and operational with flights able to land and depart. There were 3,500 U.S. troops on the ground to help control airport operations as of Tuesday morning.

On Monday, more than 700 people were evacuated by the U.S. military, including 165 American citizens, the Pentagon said.

Kirby, at a briefing with reporters Monday, was matter of fact, saying the crush of civilians at the airport came about because “there were a lot of Afghans that wanted to get out of the country.”
 

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(KYOTO, Japan) — Moe, 30, is a former geisha turned mom and YouTuber. She’s well aware of how drastic her career change may look as no two professions appear to be more different.

In Japan, geishas are enigmas with utterly private lives. They study traditional Japanese performing arts and use that knowledge to entertain guests through their own performances at parties. Gaining entry into one of those parties is a guarded secret and unlikely for the common passerby.

On the other hand, YouTubers are, for the most part, open books with much of their lives laid bare for all to see. They vlog about their daily lives, share intimate details and show off their home spaces.

But for Moe, known as “Kimono Mom” on YouTube, both of her chosen professions are rooted in the same thing: a love of culture and a desire to preserve it.

The path to becoming a geisha

It all started when Moe was 15 years old and living in Kyoto.

“When I was in my first year of high school, we had homework to find 10 different unique jobs,” she told “Good Morning America.” “My grandfather was teaching calligraphy at Gion, where maiko and geiko were living. … At that time, I realized that I lived in Kyoto but didn’t know much about maiko and geiko, and I didn’t even know how Japanese traditions were preserved, so I interviewed them.”

Moe, whose last name is being withheld for privacy reasons, said she was impressed by how hard maikos (apprentice geishas) and geikos (another word for geisha) worked to preserve Japanese culture.

“I wanted to be like that,” she said.

Moe left school at age 15 and moved into an okiya, or geisha house, where she began an apprenticeship. Her days were full, she said, with classes from 9 a.m. to 2 or 3 p.m., and then work from 5 p.m. until as late as 1 a.m.

“When you go to a geisha party, there are guests waiting,” Moe said. “I’d bring food, drinks and show them Japanese dance.”

Moe completed her apprenticeship and became a full geisha at age 20, and said that while the work was demanding, she loved it.

“I liked to be on stage,” she said of her favorite part of being a geisha. “I’ve always liked to stand out since when I was little.”

Marriage brought change and culture shock.

Traditionally, geishas aren’t allowed to marry. If they want to do so, they have to retire from the profession. So when Moe married her first husband at the age of 21, she was forced to quit.

“A geisha has to quit when she gets married,” she said. “So [when] I got married, I retired and went to Tokyo to have a married life.”

Life in urban Tokyo was completely at odds with her previous life, and Moe said she was “shocked by the cultural difference.”

“Since I was 15 years old, I lived in the okiya,” she said. “I couldn’t carry my cellphone, I couldn’t watch TV — I lived in that world.”

As a housewife with a husband who didn’t want her to go out, Moe said she felt “like a bird in a cage.” Now knowing what the world outside of the okiya was like, she didn’t want to give up her freedom and pushed for a divorce.

“After I knew my freedom, I met many various people and I couldn’t live without my real personality,” she said.

Moe started working and later remarried. However, after she became pregnant and gave birth to her daughter, Sutan, she again had to leave her job.

“I always thought that I didn’t want to go back to living as a housewife,” she said. “But I didn’t know that being a mom was so busy.”

In early 2020, a YouTuber named Paolo contacted Moe to ask if she’d be willing to be filmed for his “Japan Day in the Life” series. Her video focused on a day in the life of a Japanese mom and, with 15 million views at the time of writing, is his most popular in the series.

“At the time I was featured in Paolo’s video, I had never seen YouTube,” Moe said, adding that Paolo was the first YouTuber she’d ever met. “I intuitively thought, ‘Maybe I can do it too.'”

For her channel, Moe thought to feature what was familiar.

“When I thought about what I could do now, I had an idea that I’d try to combine kimono and cooking,” she said. “I make recipes because I want people from overseas to see them. … I use ingredients that are easily available overseas.”

Armed with just an iPhone and laptop, “Kimono Mom” was born.

The videos have a universal appeal.

In her first video on Feb. 21, 2020, Moe is in a kimono as she demonstrates how to make a deep-fried lotus root sandwich. Throughout the video, she has to stop what she’s doing multiple times because of Sutan crying or wanting to be held — an experience that parents everywhere know all too well.

While some may edit out those clips or reshoot, Moe doesn’t shy away from them, leaving them in the final product. It’s this level of authenticity that Moe believes is the reason her channel has garnered such an international following.

“The image of mothers is international,” Moe said. “It doesn’t change so much in Japan, the United States or Brazil. There are mothers all over the world so even if the person watching isn’t a mother … a mother’s presence is close to people’s hearts.”

Initially, Moe didn’t want her daughter to appear in the videos for privacy reasons, but said the nature of being a mom to a young child made it “inevitable.”

“My daughter hasn’t left me alone since she started talking,” Moe said. “It feels like she’s always next to me.”

With her videos, Moe hopes to provide a lens into Japanese culture, food and motherhood. In addition to cooking, Moe also vlogs about other aspects of her life, such as her family’s daily activities, how they spend their holidays and her daughter’s “terrible twos”.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Just 10 days ago, Ahmad and his family were living at home in Kabul, Afghanistan. Now, they’re starting a new life in the U.S.

“It’s quite different and I like it. It is something that I have never imagined before,” Ahmad told ABC News. In this report, he will only be referred to by his first name to protect his family.

“The peace. The calm… You’re free, you can go anywhere, you can do anything, you enjoy your life. And the most important thing [is] that we have a better future for children.”

Within a few short weeks of American troops’ departure, Ahmad’s home country of Afghanistan fell quickly to the Taliban, an Islamic military insurgent group. This catastrophic outcome came after 20 years of American forces fighting there and almost a trillion dollars spent. Nearly 2,400 Americans, 66,000 Afghan military fighters and over 47,000 Afghan civilians were killed in the decadeslong war.

“I just missed… what’s happening in Afghanistan. This week, I came here, and then next Friday. It was under the Taliban control,” he said. “I am very lucky, and I’m happy for that.”

Ahmad said it took him a year and a half to get out of the country, and now it’s “impossible” for the thousands of other Afghans trying to escape.

For years, Ahmad worked in logistics, supplying equipment for the U.S. and Afghan forces in Kabul. But his association with the West made him a target for the Taliban, despite its assurances that those who worked with the U.S. would not be harmed.

“We don’t believe them because … they recently killed some interpreters and journalists in our province, and put them in a massive mass grave,” Ahmad said. “They will do it again. They did it before and they are going to do it again.”

His special immigrant visa, or SIV, was finally approved this month, allowing him, his wife and their two daughters to get out.

“The situation in Afghanistan … for me, for my family, for my children, there was no future,” he said. “So that’s why I decided to move.”

Still, most of their family is trapped back home and at risk. ABC News agreed not to reveal the family’s full name or where they are to avoid retribution against their relatives.

“God save them. And they should save themselves, they should hide themselves,” Ahmad said. “If [they] go out they will be caught on the, on the road, and [the Taliban will] put them in prison … We can’t say anything. I just told my friend … Please change your locations, do not be in one place … don’t be caught by the Taliban. Whatever you can do. Just don’t be in your address, don’t be in your home, or don’t be in places that the people may find you. This is the only thing that I can tell my friends and coworkers in Afghanistan.”

Ahmad worries about the Taliban’s restrictions that will affect women in the country, including rules about not wearing nail polish and not being allowed in public without a male guardian.

“They are not allowed to go to the university or to school. So that means that, as is the same rule that they had in 1996 … a woman is not allowed to go to the university or not to work,” he said. “So, basically, you have paralyzed, half of the community of the country, half of the population of the country, paralyzed.”

However, he believes women will “definitely” fight back for their freedoms.

“The women of Afghanistan today is not the women of Afghanistan before — they are more educated,” he said. “They have seen the world, they know everything, and nobody will sit back and say okay, do whatever. Everybody will try to fight back, for their rights.”

Without the support and protection of the U.S. military, the success of women in the country seems hopeless.

Ahmad didn’t expect the war to end like this.

“We were expecting a peace in Afghanistan… a country that all the people should have their own rights, their own freedom, but right now, we went back. Twenty years back, the same spot that we were then,” he said. “It doesn’t make me angry, but it makes me sad. As we know that America came for a purpose, they achieved their purpose. We cannot force them to stay in Afghanistan, and fight for, on, on our behalf.”

For Americans who served in the war, and for a generation of Afghans who saw the promise of progress, many are wondering if their sacrifices were in vain. Those left behind in the country may pay the highest cost as the situation grows direr by the minute.

Scenes from Kabul show thousands racing to flee at the airport, with adults and children hanging off aircraft as they attempt to take off. Six thousand American troops have now been ordered to head directly to Kabul to assist in the evacuation of U.S. personnel and Afghans who assisted the U.S. mission, a U.S. official told ABC News.

Ahmad decided to work for the U.S. in 2016.

“It was a good financial support for my family to live,” he said. “We thought that it is going to help our country with working with the U.S. government, and somehow we are helping our country to run the aircrafts, against the invaders.”

He didn’t know his work would make him a target of the Taliban.

“[In] the beginning, my neighbors, my relations, my close relatives … they were trying to convince me that I shouldn’t work with U.S. government,” he said. Then, he said, he and his family were menaced with calls and knocks on their doors.

Ahmad says he believes Afghanistan’s rapid fall was a cause of its weak government.

“They didn’t build [the government], then build their strength. They’re all depending on the U.S. government support for U.S. military [for] 20 years, they [were] just relying on other forces. British or Australian forces. They didn’t want to build their own ability or capability to control.”

He said he blames “ourselves” for his country’s downfall.

“Why we didn’t [we] change, and 20 years. We had everything, all the facilities, all the support, all the money, why we didn’t change? Why we didn’t change ourselves, why we didn’t change for [the] better?” he said. “I blame ourselves, our leaders for that.”

He can’t foresee when he will return to his home country but says if the regime changes and if “There’s a peace, I will go back.”

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