Afghanistan national team football player Zaki Anwari fell to his death as he attempted to escape Taliban-controlled Kabul by holding onto a US military aircraft leaving the Hamid Karzai International Airport in the capital city for Doha.

The General Directorate of Physical Education and Sports of Afghanistan confirmed the news in one of his Facebook posts which read, "It is with great sadness that Zaki Anwari, one of the players of the national junior football team of the country, died in a bad accident. The late Anwari was among hundreds of young people who wanted to leave the country, fell down in an accident from a US plane and lost his life." As the Taliban took over the capital city of Kabul on Sunday, hundreds of Afghan nationals fled the country in a C-17 aircraft of the US Air Force the following day. However, a couple of people who had latched on to the side of the aircraft, including Zaki Anwari, fell off the plane mid-air.

An international report has claimed that the young footballer was trapped in the landing gear of the US evacuation flight. The report read, "Mr Anwari's remains were discovered in the wheel well of a US C-17 transport jet when it arrived in Qatar, after the plane had taken off from Kabul with despairing Afghans clinging to the fuselage on Monday. His football team the Khorosan lions reported that he had been among the teen's videoed clinging to the side of a US C-17 transport."