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- Two decades of engagement in Afghanistan by British troops has come to an end as the final members of UK military and diplomatic personnel left Kabul airport on Saturday night, ending the largest evacuation mission since the second world war. Operation Pitting – where more than 1,000 troops, diplomats, and officials were dispatched to Afghanistan to rescue UK nationals and Afghan allies after the seizure of the country’s capital by the Taliban – airlifted more than 15,000 people to safety across just over a fortnight.
- US president Joe Biden says a new terrorist attack in Afghanistan is “highly likely in the next 24-36 hours”.
- Musa Papal has been named by his family as a British victim of the Kabul airport suicide bombing. Papal, 60, left his home in North London in May to visit family in Kandahar and was killed in the airport blast. Another Briton killed in the Kabul attack was Mohammad Niazi, a 29-year-old taxi driver who died along with his wife and two of their children after he went to Afghanistan to rescue them, Sky News reports.
- The Pentagon said the US has helped a total of 117,000 people evacuate from Afghanistan, including 6,800 in the past 24 hours.
- France and Britain will submit a resolution to an emergency United Nations meeting due Monday on Afghanistan proposing a safe zone in Kabul to protect people trying to leave the country, French president Emmanuel Macron said.
- The families of Afghan interpreters who have fled the Taliban to the UK will be offered free English courses as part of a comprehensive package to help them settle in their new home.
- Thousands of emails to the Foreign Office from MPs and charities detailing urgent cases of Afghans trying to escape from Kabul have not been read, including cases flagged by government ministers, the Observer has been told.
- The US conducted a drone strike against an Islamic State target in Afghanistan on Saturday. US Central Command said the US conducted a drone strike against the IS member in Nangahar believed to be involved in planning attacks against the US in Kabul. The strike killed one individual, and spokesman Navy Captain William Urban said they knew of no civilian casualties.
- The US Embassy in Kabul warned that US citizens at the airport gates “should leave immediately”. The embassy also warned, citing security threats, that citizens should avoid traveling to the airport because of security threats.
A former Royal Marine who founded an animal shelter in Kabul left an expletive-laden message for a government aide as he sought to place his staff and pets on a flight out of Afghanistan, according to reports.
The Times newspaper said it had obtained a leaked audio recording of Paul “Pen” Farthing berating Peter Quentin, a special adviser to the defence secretary, Ben Wallace, who he accused of “blocking” efforts to arrange a flight.
Farthing’s campaign to get workers and animals from the Nowzad shelter out of Afghanistan has caused controversy in recent days, after receiving a huge amount of public support.
Although visas were granted for his 24 staff and their dependents, Farthing refused to leave without his pets and aimed to get 200 dogs and cats out of the country.
UK for Afghanistan (@UK4Afghanistan)
The British embassy in Kabul has suspended all in-country operations.
Any British Nationals remaining in Afghanistan should consult FCDO Travel Advice for important updates.https://t.co/9s8eC9SF4Y pic.twitter.com/9pcNK2zLRJ
The government last night unveiled “operation warm welcome” for the thousands of arriving Afghans, but campaigners immediately expressed concerns about the accommodation many will be offered.
As a new position – a minister for Afghan resettlement – was announced, doctors also warned that healthcare provision would have to be improved if, as expected, many of the arrivals are housed in hotels for at least the first few months.
The government also said it would be taking up the many offers of support that have flooded in from charities, businesses and members of the public. Critics warned that ministers must avoid relying on the goodwill of the British people to deliver vital support to the new arrivals.
For many of the Afghans, their first taste of the UK will be of life in a hotel. Frantic attempts are being made to find accommodation, but the influx has exposed the country’s lack of suitable housing stock.
France and Britain will submit a resolution to an emergency United Nations meeting due Monday on Afghanistan proposing a safe zone in Kabul to protect people trying to leave the country, French president Emmanuel Macron said.
“Our resolution proposal aims to define a safe zone in Kabul, under UN control, which would allow humanitarian operations to continue,” Macron told French newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche.
UN secretary general Antonio Guterres is convening a meeting on Afghanistan with the UN envoys for Britain, France, the United States, China and Russia – the Security Council’s permanent, veto-wielding members.
Macron said on Saturday that France was holding preliminary discussions with the Taliban about the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan and the possible evacuation of more people from the country.
Ministry of Defence Press Office (@DefenceHQPress)
The final flight carrying UK Armed Forces personnel has left Kabul. To all those who served so bravely under enormous pressure and horrendous conditions to safely evacuate the most vulnerable of civilians: Thank you. pic.twitter.com/8DaRrpjWjq
The families of Afghan interpreters who have fled the Taliban to the UK will be offered free English courses as part of a comprehensive package to help them settle in their new home.
More than 8,000 Afghans and their families have been evacuated from Kabul airport since August 13th under the Afghan Relocation and Assistance Policy scheme.
And a new programme dubbed Operation Warm Welcome, overseen by Victoria Atkins who will become Afghan resettlement minister, aims to deliver all the refugees need to help them integrate into British society, PA reports.
Boris Johnson has told members of the Armed Forces, veterans, and loved ones of those who died serving in the military it was not down to “chance or good fortune” that the UK had been safe from attacks launched from Afghanistan for 20 years.
In an open letter, the prime minister said he had been “lost in admiration for the heroic efforts of everyone” involved in Operation Pitting, the evacuation efforts to remove UK nationals and Afghan allies from Kabul airport.
Writing as the operation came to an end, with the last military and diplomatic personnel leaving Kabul on Saturday, Johnson said: “There has been nothing like it in speed and scale, certainly in my lifetime.”
Johnson added he recognised the downfall of Afghanistan to the Taliban after 20 years would have been difficult to comprehend.
“Over the last two decades, many thousands of you dedicated years of your lives to service in Afghanistan, often in the most arduous conditions.
“In particular, I realise that this will be an especially difficult time for the friends and loved ones of the 457 service personnel who laid down their lives.”
Thousands of emails to the Foreign Office from MPs and charities detailing urgent cases of Afghans trying to escape from Kabul have not been read, including cases flagged by government ministers, the Observer has been told.
The UK’s Afghanistan evacuation concluded on Saturday night with the departure of Britain’s final military and diplomatic personnel, bringing a sudden end to the 20-year deployment. More than 15,000 people have been brought out of the country in the last fortnight, in what ministers described as the largest UK military evacuation since the second world war.
However, amid accusations of government incompetence over elements of the evacuation effort, the Observer has seen evidence that an official email address used to collate potential Afghan cases from MPs and others regularly contained 5,000 unread emails throughout the week.
In many cases, emails detailing the cases of Afghans who fear for their families’ lives appear to have been unopened for days. An email from the Labour leader, Keir Starmer, sent on Monday was still unread on Thursday. There also appeared to be unread messages from the offices of Victoria Atkins, the newly appointed minister for Afghan resettlement, the home secretary, Priti Patel, and the Tory chair of the defence select committee, Tobias Ellwood.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said: “I pay tribute to the brave men and women of our armed forces who have done so much to provide the opportunity of a new life to so many.
Our diplomatic staff and military personnel should be proud of the heroic work they have done and we owe them a great debt of gratitude.
“It is now for the government to urgently set out a plan for those left behind.”
Two decades of engagement in Afghanistan by British troops has come to an end as the final members of UK military and diplomatic personnel left Kabul airport on Saturday night, ending the largest evacuation mission since the second world war.
Operation Pitting – where more than 1,000 troops, diplomats, and officials were dispatched to Afghanistan to rescue UK nationals and Afghan allies after the seizure of the country’s capital by the Taliban – airlifted more than 15,000 people to safety across just over a fortnight.
Prime minister Boris Johnson said now was “a moment to reflect on everything we have sacrificed and everything we have achieved in the last two decades”.
The prime minister has also thanked those involved in the operation to evacuate Britons and selected Afghans from Afghanistan.
Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson)
Operation PITTING is a mission unlike anything we have seen in our lifetime, helping 15,000 people to safety in just under two weeks.
I want to thank everyone involved and the thousands of those who served over the last two decades. You can be proud of what you have achieved. https://t.co/2RTrsuDOb7
Rt. Hon Ben Wallace MP (@BWallaceMP)
The UK should be very proud of what you have done. Every one of you have displayed the highest levels of professionalism and bravery. You have helped thousands to get to a better future and safety. Thank you. @16AirAssltBde @VAdmBenKey @DefenceHQ pic.twitter.com/vHzxwS2Quv
Joe Biden warned on Saturday that another terrorist attack in Kabul was highly likely in the next 24 to 36 hours.
The US president also said the US drone strike which killed two Islamic State targets in retaliation for the deaths of 13 US service members and as many as 170 civilians on Thursday would not be the last such action.
Earlier, Pentagon spokesmen said 6,800 people had been flown from Afghanistan in the last 24 hours, bringing the total of US citizens and Afghan allies evacuated in one of the biggest airlifts in history to more than 117,000. The Pentagon also named the US service members killed by a suicide bomber and gunmen at the airport in Kabul on Thursday. Eleven were US marines, one was a soldier and one a sailor. Many were only babies when the US invaded Afghanistan in late 2001.
Hundreds of Afghans have marched to the US Embassy in Athens, making a plea to the international community for peace and holding banners reading “Afghanistan is bleeding” and “Hands off our land”.
“We are tired of war, we are tired of violence, we are tired of seeing dead bodies. We all came here together, we want peace from the world, we want to end this war,” said Omey Naziam, 24, who joined the peaceful protest in the Greek capital.
Other protesters shouted “Stop killing Afghans” and “We want justice”, Reuters reports.
When the email arrived last Tuesday, Faaiz Ghulam and his young family were euphoric. Approved for evacuation, they were instructed to head straight to the west gate of Kabul’s Baron Hotel. There, British officials would process their case. Next step, the UK.
Yet Ghulam, his wife and their two children – an 18-month-old daughter and three-year-old son – are today in hiding in Kabul, terrified for their lives. Their first attempt to reach the hotel ended at a Taliban checkpoint. A second was abandoned over safety concerns as Ghulam and his wife carried their children through febrile crowds outside the airport.
On Thursday, the family were just 10 metres from the suicide bomber who detonated explosives that killed up to 170 people. “We are traumatised. We escaped by walking on dead people,” Ghulam told the Observer.
US president Joe Biden says a new terrorist attack in Afghanistan is ‘highly likely in the next 24-36 hours’.
In a statement, the president said: “This morning, I met with my national security team in Washington and my commanders in the field. We discussed the strike that US forces took last night against the terrorist group ISIS-K in Afghanistan. I said we would go after the group responsible for the attack on our troops and innocent civilians in Kabul, and we have.
This strike was not the last. We will continue to hunt down any person involved in that heinous attack and make them pay. Whenever anyone seeks to harm the United States or attack our troops, we will respond. That will never be in doubt.”
He added: “The situation on the ground continues to be extremely dangerous, and the threat of terrorist attacks on the airport remains high. Our commanders informed me that an attack is highly likely in the next 24-36 hours.”
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