Some of the crowd held guns aloft, while others waved Taliban flags or snapped the procession on mobile phones.

“August 31 is our formal Freedom Day. On this day, American occupying forces and NATO forces fled the country,” Taliban official Qari Saeed Khosti told local television station Zhman TV during its coverage of the event.

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Footage from Khost was shared widely on social media on Tuesday alongside other videos of celebratory gunfire https://www.reuters.com/world/india/rockets-fired-kabul-airport-us-troops-race-complete-evacuation-2021-08-30 in the capital Kabul and a man dangling from a U.S.-made Black Hawk helicopter circling above Afghanistan’s second-city Khandahar. Reuters could not verify all the videos.

a group of people standing in front of a crowd: U.S. and NATO flags flank coffins at mock funeral held by Taliban© Reuters/ZHMAN TV U.S. and NATO flags flank coffins at mock funeral held by TalibanThe last U.S. soldier https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/leaving-afghanistan-us-generals-ghostly-image-books-place-history-2021-08-31 boarded the final flight out of Afghanistan a minute before midnight on Monday, ending a chaotic evacuation of 123,000 civilians from Afghanistan.

a group of people standing in front of a crowd: U.S. and NATO flags flank coffins at mock funeral held by Taliban© Reuters/ZHMAN TV U.S. and NATO flags flank coffins at mock funeral held by TalibanIn a lightning sweep back to power, the Taliban ousted a government backed and equipped by the United States and captured U.S.-made weapons https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/planes-guns-night-vision-goggles-talibans-new-us-made-war-chest-2021-08-19 and hardware left behind by fleeing Afghan forces.

Other images shared online on Tuesday showed Taliban members walking through Kabul airport in U.S.-supplied fatigues, some brandishing gleaming rifles and others trying out state-of-the-art night vision goggles or sizing up U.S. helicopters.

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said the U.S. military was not concerned by the images as the helicopters could not be flown. The departing U.S. troops destroyed more than 70 aircraft and dozens of armoured vehicles. They also disabled air defences that had thwarted an attempted Islamic State rocket attack on the eve of their departure.

(Writing by John Geddie; editing by Philippa Fletcher)