War of words over Pen Farthing’s animal rescue mission continues

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Pen Farthing’s rescued dogs have begun their quarantine at a sanctuary in Britain amid a mounting war of words over how 150 British nationals and scores of translators were left behind in warzone Afghanistan whilst the ex-Royal Marine’s animals made it out of the country.

As photographs showed the scores of dogs being taken by animal sanctuary staff to an undisclosed location for their legally required quarantine, critics of the evacuation questioned how the dogs made it to the UK whilst as many as 5,000 people with a right to settle in the UK were abandoned in Kabul. 

Ex-Royal Marine Pen Farthing landed in Heathrow on a charter flight with around 200 dogs and cats at the weekend and then took a connecting flight to Norway to see his wife Kaisa Markhus.    

Major James Bolter, a reservist in the Royal Logistic Corps, questioned why the UK put ‘more effort’ into rescuing ‘abandoned animals’ than those left behind, adding that he was ‘torn’ between ‘anger and despair’. 

And ex-paratrooper Major Andrew Fox said it was ‘insane’ that the dogs were ‘facilitated’ into the airport whilst British citizens and Afghan allies remained outside it.    

In the new images of the dogs, staff members at Lozzas Lurcher Rescue in Hertfordshire was seen checking one of the dogs’ side as it lay on the ground. On the Facebook page, they referred to their ‘precious cargo’ and noted how ‘every dog’ had been ‘well looked after’ by Mr Farthing. 

Further images posted by Wales Ape and Monkey Sanctuary, whose staff also helped with getting the animals from London’s Heathrow Airport to their place of quarantine, showed dogs including a German Shepherd being cared for.

But whilst the dogs made it to the UK, some fear the true number of people left in Afghanistan – including hundreds of interpreters who aided British troops over the past two decades – is much higher than the 5,000 figure.

Mr Farthing’s allies accused the Ministry of Defence of ‘endangering lives of crew’ by releasing details of the charter flight into Kabul to Sky News on Saturday. 

Dominic Dyer, an animal rights campaigner and friend of the ex-Royal Marine, claimed Ben Wallace acted ‘disgracefully’ towards Mr Farthing, who runs the Nowzad animal charity, after the Defence Secretary denied allegations that he had ‘blocked’ a private flight to rescue the cats and dogs.

He also rebutted claims that he had insulted British forces by denouncing the MoD and expressed ‘huge respect for what they were doing in the most difficult, dangerous circumstances’. He called the withdrawal ‘appallingly handled’ by Britain and the US. 

Ministers including Mr Wallace have expressed frustration at Mr Farthing’s tactics after the Mail on Sunday revealed he threatened to ‘f**king destroy’ Peter Quentin, a special adviser to the Defence Secretary accused of ‘blocking’ the flight, unless he helped. 

Mr Wallace initially said that he would not prioritise ‘pets over people’ but later allowed a charter plane to land at Kabul to pick up Mr Farthing, and ‘facilitated’ the charity’s entry to the airport.  

But speaking to ITV’s Good Morning Britain from Oslo today, Mr Farthing dismissed claims he was helped by the Government to get into Kabul airport. ‘Nobody in the British Government facilitated my entry into that airport – I did that with the Taliban,’ he said. 

He also admitted that some seats on his animal rescue flight were empty and that five of his cats died of shock on their way to Hamid Karzai airport.

His animals are now in quarantine as per UK law and all the costs of the operation are being met by Nowzad. However, they could be put down if they’ve brought back disease, with Whitehall officials comparing the situation to Geronimo the alpaca – who is facing destruction after testing positive for Bovine TB – ‘on speed’.

It comes after multiple missiles were fired at Kabul airport in the latest act of violence as the US races to get its last troops out of Afghanistan before the August 31 deadline set by Joe Biden – less than a week after ISIS-K carried out a suicide bombing killing 170 people including 13 US Marines. 

Meanwhile, Scottish Afghan charity Linda Norgrove Foundation said its staff trapped in Kabul have been forced to return to their homes after a ‘relentless 46 hours facing gunfire at the city’s airport entrance, either in a bus or a panicky crowd, with incessant gunfire and the constant, real threat of a terrorist bomb’.

The charity was set up in memory of a Scots aid worker who was killed after being kidnapped by the Taliban. The foundation previously said it has two staff, sisters aged 25 and 29, who were ‘holed up in their flat in Kabul’ after the Taliban seized control of the city.  

It comes as: 

Multiple rockets have been fired at Kabul airport in just the latest attack as the US races to get its last troops out of Afghanistan before the August 31 deadline;Foreign Office Minister James Cleverly admitted the Government has no idea how many Afghan citizens the UK left behind in Afghanistan;Dominic Raab will be ‘toast’ at Boris Johnson’s next Cabinet reshuffle because of his handling of the UK’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, it was claimed todayBritain is facing the biggest terror threat in years, experts have warned the Prime Minister; The Government said it had received assurances from the Taliban that anybody wishing to leave Afghanistan after August 31 will be allowed to do so;MPs and former military leaders have called on the government to create a new regiment in the British Army for Afghan special forces – just like the Gurkhas.

Posting on Facebook yesterday, a staff member at Lozzas Lurcher rescue said: ‘Every dog to the despair of the kennels, needed to be fussed, fed treats and told how lucky and wonderful they were by me before being put into their kennel.

‘I must have added an extra 3 hrs to the process.

‘Every dog has been really well looked after and Pen has done just the most amazing rescue mission. Each dog totally deserved this chance of a new life.

‘I know Nowzad [Mr Farthing’s charity] are desperately trying to help the people left behind, but today is a celebration that lives have been saved that wouldn’t have if it wasn’t for Pen’s sheer guts and determination.’

A later post said that, ‘for safety reasons’, ‘no information’ would be released about where the animals were taken to for their period in quarantine. 

UK law requires that the dogs will have to stay in isolation in kennels for up to six months, depending on when they had their rabies vaccine.

If any of the dogs are found to have any diseases, there is a chance they will be put down.  

The pictures came as Mr Dyer told GB News today: ‘The fact is that we had to put dogs on an airplane without people is a question that we should be asking. How did we get to that point? That plane was sat on that runway, we were in contact with Dominic Raab’s office and we were begging him, begging him to let someone get on that plane. 

‘You know the response we were getting? ”We don’t have anyone in this airport we can put on that plane, we have more air capacity than people. But over on the other wall we have hundreds, thousands of people in sewage waiting to get blown up by suicide bombers who have been there for days with their children in the most disgusting conditions.”

‘So this whole operation has been appallingly handled. What happened at the end is that Pen got access to the airport because the Taliban let him in with his dogs.’ 

Foreign Office Minister James Cleverly insisted the Government had prioritised the evacuation of people over pets. He told LBC Radio: ‘We have always prioritised evacuating people over evacuating animals.

‘Mr Farthing is a British national, he had the opportunity to leave Afghanistan much earlier. His staff are enrolled on to the scheme by which Afghans that worked with the British were able to be evacuated.

‘But as I have said, we have always prioritised the evacuation of people.’

Major Bolter said Mr Farthing’s publicity campaign British troops on the ground from the task of airlifting thousands of UK nationals and Afghan ex-translators fleeing the Taliban.    

He told The Times: ‘Was this for worthy Afghan politicians or special forces? No, sadly and infuriatingly, this was to bring one ex-Royal Marine and his rescued cats and dogs to the UK. 

‘What do I tell those people left behind when they ask me why the UK put more effort into rescuing abandoned animals than them? I have no answers. I am torn between anger and despair.’ 

Ex-paratrooper Major Andrew Fox, who served three tours in Afghanistan, added: ‘The Taliban’s agenda is not about killing animals or westerners who cared for them. It’s about killing those who worked with NATO. 

‘It’s insane they were facilitated into the airport with British citizens and interpreters left outside.’  

Appearing on ITV’s Good Morning Britain today, Mr Farthing said emotions ‘got the better’ of him during the expletive-laden message and apologised. A recording, obtained by The Times, captured Mr Farthing berating Peter Quentin, a special adviser to Mr Wallace, who he accused of ‘blocking’ efforts to arrange the evacuation flight. 

The Defence Secretary has insisted on Twitter that it is a ‘total myth’ that he blocked a flight. 

‘I’m incredibly embarrassed about my language, I do apologise to everybody who’s listened to that. I was at the lowest point I could possibly be. I understand how the world works but emotions got the better of me, so for all those who had to listen to that I do apologise for my language,’ he told GMB.

‘I should not have said it like that, but the sentiment, yes, I was just incredibly upset, angry, frustrated, it was the lowest point. I had no other option, I didn’t know what else to do. So that’s why you’ve probably heard some colourful language.’

He also told the show that there were ‘several empty seats’ on his evacuation flight with around 170 dogs and cats from the animal shelter and insisted he was the only person on the flight. 

He added: ‘I went around and they reassured me that they had enough capacity for all the people that needed to leave. I was probably like the last person to enter that airport – it was closed. Americans, the British, had obviously stopped taking people in because there had to be a point where they stopped taking people in.

‘So they assured me they had enough capacity for everybody who was inside the airport.’ 

In a separate interview today, Mr Farthing claimed he was still working to help evacuate his staff from Afghanistan as he thanked the MOD and the Government after his previous criticism. 

Mr Farthing said: ‘We’d like to thank the Home Office, FCDO, MoD and all of Govt for their support with Op Ark, and look forward to working closely with them over the coming weeks whilst we complete our mission, getting those 68 people out of Afghanistan and back to safety.

‘Whilst those vulnerable staff, mostly young women, remain in danger in Afghanistan, we shall not rest.

‘In the same way that the MoD needs to be left alone to get on with the important work of evacuating staff and troops out of Afghanistan, likewise we need to focus on the second and most important part of Op Ark, getting those vulnerable vets and vet nurses and their children out of Kabul, rather than having to deal with ill-informed comments from MPs, the press and armchair pundits.’ 

Mr Farthing flew back to the UK last night with his menagerie of animals.

The 57-year-old’s chartered jet from Pakistan landed in Kabul at around 6pm local time and stopped off in Muscat before making its journey to Heathrow Airport. He then took a connecting flight to Norway. 

Mr Farthing’s friend said the ex-Marine had succeeded in evacuating the 170 animals to the UK but 24 staff had to be left behind. Dominic Dyer, an animal welfare campaigner, said the former marine was forced to travel back alone after being told it was not possible to find people to fill the plane’s seats.

Mr Dyer said the shelter staff were ‘still in their homes’ with the charity in contact with them, adding that efforts would be made to try to get them out of Afghanistan. 

‘They are one of thousands of Afghans… that have a right to leave the country but actually have no safe passage out at the moment,’ he said.

The activist said the staff were denied entry to the airport in Kabul on Thursday, with the Taliban claiming they did not have the right paperwork. ‘Tragic and not the ending we wanted, but we fell victim to the chaos and the difficulties of getting through those gates,’ he added.

All of the almost 100 dogs and 70 cats on the flight were ‘healthy’, with the dogs placed in kennels, Mr Dyer said. He said armed forces personnel ‘willingly and voluntarily’ helped Mr Farthing load the animals’ crates on to the aircraft in Kabul, but extra passengers were not found.

Mr Dyer claimed an appeal was put in to the British Government ‘to see if we could fill seats with refugees within the airport. They told us there was no one they could find that could actually fill that aircraft.’      

Mr Farthing’s controversial publicity campaign to pressure the British Government to get his staff and animals out of the Afghan capital following the Taliban coup gained huge public support and helped the ex-Royal Marine to raise enough money to charter a private plane. 

But it has also led to accusations that the ex-Commando took up resources that could have been used to evacuate more people from Kabul. It was revealed yesterday that up to 150 British nationals and 1,100 Afghans who assisted UK efforts in Afghanistan will be left behind in the country. 

Ex-soldier Tom Tugendhat, the Tory chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, criticised the decision to use British troops to evacuate 180 cats and dogs while Afghan ex-UK staff are left fearing reprisals under Taliban rule. 

‘The difficulty is getting people into and out of the airport and we’ve just used a lot of troops to get in 200 dogs,’ Mr Tugendhat said. ‘Meanwhile my interpreter’s family are likely to be killed. As one interpreter asked me a few days ago, why is my five year-old worth less than your dog?’

When asked what his answer was to his interpreter’s question, Mr Tugendhat replied: ‘I didn’t have an answer, what would your answer be?’ 

Major General Nick Carter, the head of the British Army, told the BBC’s Radio 4 Today Programme that the army’s ‘priority has been to evacuate human beings,’ amid anger over the decision to evacuate animals. 

‘We obviously worry about everything that needs to be evacuated, but of course these are very difficult times, and there are very difficult judgements to be made,’ he said.  

Earlier Mr Farthing revealed how ‘depressing’ it was that he was forced to leave his Afghan staff behind. He told how his employees were stopped from crossing the Taliban line to the British area at Kabul airport.

His desperate comments were in sharp contrast to his wife, who spoke of her joy that her husband was on his way home. Kaisa Markhus, who fled Afghanistan last week for her native Norway, was eating dinner with her father in Oslo when she was told he was getting out.

It comes as the US military said it used a drone strike to kill a member of the so-called Islamic State group’s Afghanistan affiliate.

The strike came amid what the White House called indications that ISIS-K planned to strike again as the US-led evacuation from Kabul airport moves into its final days. A devastating suicide bombing claimed by the group killed as many as 170 Afghans and 13 American service members at the airport on Thursday.

Mr Farthing flew out of Afghanistan for Tashkent in Uzbekistan with 94 dogs and 79 cats on a private jet and will later return to Britain. But the day was marked with sadness as he was forced to leave behind his workforce to the Taliban.

He told the Sun: ‘It is just so depressing I had to leave them behind. Some of them came with me to the airport but they weren’t allowed to cross the line from Taliban to British control. 

‘There were lots of tears when we said goodbye. I feel so many things. I feel very sad for them [but] I’m relieved for me and I feel happy for the animals.’

The Ministry of Defence, which assisted his evacuation, confirmed he was through the airport in a tweet on Friday night.  It said: ‘Pen Farthing and his pets were assisted through the system at Kabul airport by the UK armed forces. They are currently being supported while he awaits transportation. On the direction of the Defence Secretary, clearance for their charter flight has been sponsored by the UK Government.’

Mr Farthing told how his employees at the animal sanctuary drove with him to the airport in two cattle trucks. But he revealed they had been banned from crossing into the area controlled by British soldiers by armed Taliban fighters.

Soldiers helped him unload 125kg of dry pet food, 72 tins, 270 litres of water, 12 industrial size rolls of paper towel and 20 bottles of disinfectant in a warehouse.

Despite his misery at having to leave behind his staff, Mr Farthing’s wife was chuffed he was on his way out. Kaisa was eating dinner with her father in Oslo when Pen video-called her from inside Kabul airport. ‘You should have seen the smile on my face,’ she said.

Following Thursday’s carnage, Kaisa knew her husband was planning another attempt to reach the airport – but had no idea when. She said yesterday: ‘He’s now inside the airport and we had a quick video call. The second I saw him safely inside… you can imagine.’

Her husband and his animals escaping Kabul is the dream she has clung to ever since she was flown out of the city on a near-empty flight. She learned Pen, having made it through Taliban checkpoints, had been finally allowed to board a flight with 150 rescue cats and dogs from his Nowzad charity – but he was forced to leave his staff members behind.

‘I know Pen had a very hard choice. He faced that same choice when he was inside the airport with his staff and their families on Thursday and the animals and the staff were not allowed through,’ says Kaisa. 

‘So, he went back to the compound to ensure everyone was safe and to discuss with them what to do. They decided he should go to the airport again with the dogs. 

‘He was devastated to leave his staff but knew that by removing both the dogs and himself he would remove two big risk factors.’ 

Mr Farthing’s supporter and animal rights campaigner Dominic Dyer told the Mail: ‘Pen is OK, but he is very stressed. He has no choice but to leave and bring the animals with him. We are looking forward to getting them to the UK.

‘We are very pleased we’ve got him out and are very grateful to the British Government for their help, and for the support of the Armed Forces.’ 

Kaisa was sitting at her mother’s dining room table in a top borrowed from her sister and a newly bought pair of jeans. She had fled Kabul with nothing but a toothbrush and some deodorant.

Even the book she had been reading was left behind on the table beside the double bed that, until ten days ago, she shared with Mr Farthing. That they may soon hold each other again – and can start to plan their married life together – is enough to bring her to tears.

‘I cried as I was leaving Kabul,’ she says. ‘I was one of the lucky ones. When I was in the Norwegian camp at the airport there were three kids – babies – I was playing with who’d been separated from their parents. We had to leave them behind.

‘I thought, ‘I won’t see Kabul again. I might not see Pen again’. I was crying for those babies. What the f*** is this crisis about that we’re leaving small kids behind who have no one?’

She showed a short video on her phone of the children playing at the airport. The soldiers and evacuees fussed over them.

‘Two days later, I heard Norway had decided to bring them [the babies] over here. I told Pen on the phone that the babies were in Norway now. His first reaction was ‘tell them we want to adopt one’. I want kids with Pen.’

The hope in her voice could not be further removed from the distraught woman I’d spoken to earlier this week. 

On Thursday she feared the worst when, having been advised by the British Government to go to Kabul’s airport to board a charter plane to safety, Mr Farthing – along with his 25 staff, their immediate families and 150 crated cats and dogs – was turned away at the last moment.

‘I was fearing for his life,’ Kaisa said. ‘I had this heavy feeling. When he was outside the airport I was afraid because I hadn’t heard from him.’

His group had been caught up in the hellish scenes on Thursday as Isis-K bombs killed at least 170 people, including 13 US military personnel.

Pen and his staff were tear-gassed and shot at as they fled for their lives.

‘When they got out he called me he said ‘oh, Kaisa Jan [an Afghan endearment meaning ‘dear’], hell just broke loose. I’ve had an AK gun in my chest twice now’.’ 

MoD sources last night made clear Mr Farthing and his convoy did not get preferential treatment and were not on board a military flight. 

While Mr Farthing’s supporters said he had been turned away by the Taliban on Thursday, sources said he may have gone to the wrong gate.

Mr Ben Wallace initially dismissed Operation Ark, saying it would put ‘people before pets’ in the rush to flee Kabul. He later agreed to ‘seek a slot’ for the plane carrying out the mercy mission, but insisted the convoy would not be able to jump the queue. 

There were suggestions by Mr Farthing’s supporters his change of tone was prompted by an intervention from Boris Johnson’s animal-loving wife Carrie – but this was denied by Downing Street sources.

Asked if Mr Farthing had been a diversion to the overall evacuation mission, Mr Wallace told LBC: ‘I think it has taken up too much time of my senior commanders dealing with this issue when they should be focused on dealing with the humanitarian crisis.’

But he added: ‘I hope he comes back, he was advised to come back, his wife came back last Friday, so I hope he does as well.’

The only sadness for Kaisa now is that Pen has been forced to leave his beloved staff behind. 

‘When the Taliban took over Kabul, I thought ‘if you have to put all the animals to sleep, do it’. There will be other dogs but you can’t do anything if you’re dead,’ she says.

‘But then I realised something. Pen has a mother, a brother and me. We are his three family members. Many of his staff have not gone home to their families during lockdown but stayed to help him. 

‘When there was a big kidnapping threat here a few years ago they wouldn’t go home. They stayed in the office to protect him. They are his family.’ 

Burned-out rocket launchers used in latest ISIS-K attack on Kabul airport lie inside car that burst into flames after the assault following US drone strike which ‘killed ten family members, including seven children’

Burned-out rocket launchers were found in the back of a car that burst into flames after firing multiple missiles at Kabul airport today in the latest act of violence as the US races to get its last troops out of Afghanistan before the August 31 deadline set by President Joe Biden. 

At least five rockets were fired at the airstrip on Monday morning, some of which fell short into Kabul while others were brought down by defence systems. No casualties have been reported so far.

ISIS-K, a splinter group of the one that once ruled an Islamist ‘caliphate’ spanning Iraq and Syria, subsequently claimed responsibility for the attack. It comes less than a week after it carried out a suicide bombing at the airport that killed 170 people including 13 US Marines, with Biden ordering a drone strike that killed two suspected plotters in retaliation. 

The missile attack also comes just a day after an American Reaper drone blew up what was believed to be a group of ISIS-K suicide bombers planning to attack the airport, destroying two cars parked in a civilian apartment block.

The blast triggered a secondary explosion, which is thought to have killed 10 civilians who were all from the same family and were getting out of their car when the Hellfire missile struck.

Seven children, the youngest of whom was a two-year-old girl, died in the attack which also killed three adults, according to the New York Times. An interpreter who worked with US troops and an Afghan army officer due to get married tomorrow were among the adult casualties, Afghan media said. The Taliban condemned the strike.    

A statement from US Central Command acknowledged a number of ‘substantial and powerful subsequent explosions’ after the strike hit the intended vehicle, adding that the explosions suggested there had been ‘a large amount of explosive inside, that may have caused additional casualties’.

‘We would be deeply saddened by any potential loss of innocent life,’ the statement added.

Having evacuated about 114,400 people – including foreign nationals and ‘at risk’ Afghans – in an operation that began a day before Kabul fell to the Taliban on Aug. 15, U.S. and allied forces are set to complete their own withdrawal by Tuesday to meet a deadline agreed with the Islamist militants.

The number of U.S. troops at the airport had fallen to below 4,000 over the weekend, with efforts to depart becoming more urgent after an Islamic State suicide bomb attack outside the gates on Thursday killed scores of Afghan civilians and 13 U.S. military personnel. 

U.S. military cargo planes continued their evacuations at the airport following Monday morning’s rocket fire.

In Washington, the White House issued a statement saying officials briefed President Joe Biden on ‘the rocket attack at Hamid Karzai International Airport’ in Kabul.

‘The president was informed that operations continue uninterrupted at HKIA, and has reconfirmed his order that commanders redouble their efforts to prioritize doing whatever is necessary to protect our forces on the ground,’ the statement said, using an acronym for Kabul’s airport.

US Navy Captain Bill Urban, a military spokesman, had earlier said the military was investigating whether there were civilian casualties in the drone strike.

‘We are confident we successfully hit the target,’ Urban said. ‘Significant secondary explosions from the vehicle indicated the presence of a substantial amount of explosive material.’

Dina Mohammadi said her extended family were in the building and that several of them had been killed, including children. 

Ahmaduddin, a neighbour, said he had collected the bodies of children after the strike, which set off more explosions inside the house.  

Another American drone strike hit a tuk-tuk carrying two suspected ISIS-K members in the northern city of Jalalabad on Saturday, who the US said was responsible for the suicide bombing on the airport.

Aside from the thousands of American troops who still need to be evacuated from the airport, some 300 US citizens are also waiting to be flown out  according to Secretary of State Andrew Blinken. 

He warned that ‘this is the most dangerous time in an already extraordinarily dangerous mission’.

Afghanistan fell back into Taliban hands after President Biden made good on a deal struck by Donald Trump to fully withdraw US forces from the country after a 20-year conflict.

It was hoped that government forces which America spent decades training and billions of dollars arming could fight the Islamists to a stalemate, before striking a power-sharing deal.

In the end, Ashraf Ghani’s forces capitulated with barely a fight – leaving US forces and allied troops trapped in the Afghan capital as it fell to the Islamists and sparking the hasty and dangerous evacuation mission. 

Biden’s allies both home and abroad have openly accused him of blindsiding them with his rush to exit by August 31 and slammed his handling of the ensuing crisis. 

It is thought that most foreign forces stationed at the airport have now left, with the exception of US troops. The last British troops to evacuate the country have now arrived back home to RAF Brize Norton, in Oxfordshire. 

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that Britain’s hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan was ‘the culmination of a mission unlike anything we’ve seen in our lifetimes’.

But, even before the evacuation mission has been fully completed, the UK and America were vowing to go back to Afghanistan – albeit not as an occupying military force. 

Mr Johnson has already pledged that Britain will return to the country with diplomatic and humanitarian missions ‘to preserve the gains of the last 20 years’. 

Meanwhile British Ambassador to Kabul, Sir Laurie Bristow, vowed to continue to help UK nationals and Afghans who remain in the country and still need help. It is thought that some 1,100 Afghans who were promised sanctuary in Britain and 150 UK civilians were left behind when evacuation flights stopped.

Meanwhile US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan insisted that the US has shown in other countries that it is capable of ‘suppressing the terrorism threat… without a large permanent presence on the ground. And we will do that in Afghanistan as well as we go forward’.     

Mr Sullivan said that for those US citizens seeking to leave Afghanistan by Mr Biden’s deadline, ‘we have the capacity to have 300 Americans, which is roughly the number we think are remaining, come to the airport and get on planes in the time that is remaining’.

He added: ‘We moved out more than that number just yesterday. So from our point of view, there is an opportunity right now for American citizens to come, to be admitted to the airport and to be evacuated safely and effectively.’

He also pledged the US ‘will make sure there is safe passage for any American citizen, any legal permanent resident’ after Tuesday, as well as for ‘those Afghans who helped us’.

Mr Sullivan said the US would continue strikes against IS and consider ‘other operations to go after these guys, to get them and to take them off the battlefield’. 

He added: ‘We will continue to bring the fight to the terrorists in Afghanistan to make sure they do not represent a threat to the United States.’ 

The administration’s plan ‘is not to have an ongoing embassy presence in Afghanistan’, Mr Sullivan said. 

‘But we will have means and mechanisms of having diplomats on the ground there, be able to continue to process out these applicants, be able to facilitate the passage of other people who want to leave Afghanistan.’ 

Speaking on Sunday, Mr Biden vowed that the revenge strike for the bomb attack at Kabul airport is ‘not the last’ and added that the ‘situation on the ground continues to be extremely dangerous.’

For all the efforts made by Western powers to evacuate as many people as possible, tens of thousands of desperate Afghans faced being left behind.

‘We tried every option because our lives are in danger. They (the Americans or foreign powers) must show us a way to be saved. We should leave Afghanistan or they should provide a safe place for us,’ said one woman outside the airport.

Two U.S. officials told Reuters evacuations would continue on Monday, prioritising people deemed at extreme risk. Other countries have also put in last minute requests to bring out people under that category, the officials said. 

Biden attended a ceremony on Sunday at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware to honour members of the U.S. military killed in Thursday’s suicide bombing attack.

As the flag-draped transfer caskets carrying the remains emerged from a military plane, Biden shut his eyes and tilted his head back.

None of the fallen service members was over the age of 31, and five were just 20, as old as the war in Afghanistan itself.

Biden has vowed to avenge the Islamic State attack.

The United States said on Saturday it had killed two ISIS-K militants. The Taliban condemned the U.S. drone strike, which took place in Nangarhar province, an eastern area that borders Pakistan.

The departure of the last troops will mark the end of the U.S.-led military intervention in Afghanistan, which began in late 2001, after the al Qaeda Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

U.S.-backed forced ousted a Taliban government that had provided safe haven for al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, who was finally killed by U.S. forces in Pakistan in 2011, and have involved in a counter-insurgency war against the Islamist militants for the past two decades.

The Taliban’s 1996-2001 rule was marked by a harsh version of sharia, Islamic law, with many political rights and basic freedoms curtailed and women severely oppressed.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid has said the group will announce a full Cabinet in the coming days, and that the difficulties will subside quickly once the new administration is up and running.

But with its economy shattered by decades of war, Afghanistan now faces a sudden halt in inflows of billions of dollars in foreign aid.

The Pentagon said that 6,800 people had been evacuated from Afghanistan in the past 24 hours, and that 1,400 people are now screened and inside the airport for processing and removal.

Since July, 117,000 people have been evacuated by US and NATO forces, including 5,400 US citizens.  

As the evacuation entered its final stages on Monday, members of US Congress on both sides of the political aisle lined up to criticise the hasty and poorly-planned exit. 

‘We didn’t have to be in this rush-rush circumstance with terrorists breathing down our neck,’ said Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah. 

‘But it’s really the responsibility of the prior administration and this administration that has caused this crisis to be upon us and has led to what is without question a humanitarian and foreign policy tragedy.’

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said the U.S. policy in Afghanistan, with 2,500 troops on the ground, had been working. 

‘We were, in effect, keeping the lid on, keeping terrorists from reconstituting, and having a light footprint in the country,’ he said. 

In Delaware, Biden met privately with the families of the American troops killed in the suicide attack, and solemnly watched as the remains of the fallen returned to U.S. soil from Afghanistan. 

First lady Jill Biden and many of the top U.S. defense and military leaders joined him on the tarmac at Dover Air Force Base to grieve with loved ones as the ‘dignified transfer’ of remains unfolded, a military ritual for those killed in foreign combat.

The 13 service members were the first U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan since February 2020, the month the Trump administration struck an agreement with the Taliban in which the militant group halted attacks on Americans in exchange for a U.S. agreement to remove all troops and contractors by May 2021. 

Biden announced in April that the 2,500 to 3,000 troops who remained would be out by September, ending what he has called America’s forever war.

The White House has rescheduled Biden’s meeting with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, from Monday to Wednesday as the U.S. pullout from Afghanistan enters its tense final hours.

US military’ blames BRITAIN’ for making Kabul suicide attack death toll worse: Pentagon says gate had to be kept open for UK evacuees – as questions grow over how many were killed by panicked troops firing on civilians

ISIS-K suicide bomber detonated bomb in attack outside airport where 170 including two Brits died last weekUS security sources leak transcripts claiming they wanted to shut Abbey Gate but Britain wanted it open13 US troops were also killed with the mother of one victim calling Joe Biden a ‘feckless…. piece of crap’Witnesses who survived bombing claim western troops panicked in the moment and opened fire on crowds British Afghan Muhammad Niazi was among dead, but his brother fears he was shot by allied soldiers

By William Cole and Martin Robinson, chief reporter for MailOnline 

The Pentagon was today accused of trying to blame Britain after US security sources said they begged to shut down a Kabul airport gate before it was hit by an ISIS-K suicide bomber – but London wanted it kept open to continue its evacuation campaign.

The new twist came as survivors of the blast claimed panicked US troops opened fire on the crowds of evacuees in the bloody aftermath, killing their loved-ones including a British father-of-two.

Pentagon officials had predicted a ‘mass casualty’ attack at Hamid Karzai airport and warned that the Abbey Gate was the ‘highest risk’ in a meeting just 24 hours before 170 people and 13 US service personnel were massacred in the jihadist atrocity, according to leaked transcripts handed to Politico.   

And in another conference call at 12pm GMT last Thursday, American commanders set out plans to close the gate by that afternoon but the decision was taken to allow Britain, based at the nearby Baron Hotel, to continue evacuating people through it. 

Six hours later an ISIS-K terrorist armed with a suicide vest killed himself and almost 200 others.

The British Ministry of Defence declined to respond to allegations they were to blame for keeping the gate open, but said in a statement: ‘Throughout Operation Pitting we have worked closely with the US to ensure the safe evacuation of thousands of people. 

‘We send our deepest condolences to the families of the US victims of the senseless attacks in Kabul & continue to offer our full support to our closest ally’. 

The explosion happened at about 6pm local time at the Abbey Gate to the airport, where thousands had gathered at the the airport’s perimeter hoping to get on to a leaving cargo plane.

Initially the Pentagon said that there had been two suicide attacks, including at the Baron Hotel where the British were processing people. The following day the US changed its account and confirmed there had been only one, blaming ‘garbled’ intelligence from the scene. 

The brother of a British Afghan who died when an ISIS suicide bomber hit Kabul’s airport today insisted he was shot dead by panicked Western troops – not killed by the blast – as confusion over what happened during the terror attack continues. 

And survivors have claimed that frightened soldiers protecting the airport may have opened fire in the aftermath, inadvertently adding to the death toll, which included two Britons and the child of a UK national.

Among the dead was Muhammad Niazi, a taxi driver from London who had travelled back to Afghanistan to try and help get his family evacuated out of Kabul. His wife was killed in the blast, and his youngest child and eldest daughter are still believed to be missing.

His brother Abdul Hamid, who survived the blast, made the claims about bullets from western guard posts killing people and told the BBC: ‘The fire came from the bridges… the towers… from the soldiers’. He added: I saw some small children in the river, it was so bad. It was doomsday for us.’ 

The second British victim, Musa Popal, 60, was pushing through the crowd trying to attract the attention of soldiers by waving his UK passport when he was killed by the suicide bomber, it was reported last night. 

Other witnesses to the suicide bomb attack also say that their relatives weren’t killed in the blast but by fire in the confusion afterwards.  Abdul says he saw American and Turkish soldiers amid the chaotic scenes as gunfire reined over the crowds of people.

Another man claimed his friend who had helped US forces during the war had been killed by a gunfire from a Western troops.

‘This guy served the US Army for years,’ he told the broadcaster. ‘And the reason he lost his life wasn’t because of Taliban, he wasn’t killed by ISIS…’

When asked why he was so sure, the man added: ‘Because of the bullet, the bullet went inside his head, right here near to his ear,’ suggesting a troop guarding the airport may have hit him by mistake. He added that his friend had not suffered any other injuries in the blast. 

It came as three children were killed in a US drone strike targeting ‘multiple suicide bombers’ planning an attack on Kabul’s evacuation airport – just hours after Joe Biden warned of the possibility of another jihadist atrocity following this week’s attack.

Witnesses said a rocket strike blew up two cars parked outside a residential building near the Hamid Karzai airport to the north of Afghanistan’s capital. It is believed the vehicles were going to be used in an ‘imminent’ attack by ISIS-K militants.

The strike on the vehicles, filled with explosives, is then believed to have caused a secondary blast, killing and wounding several civilians. This morning as many as five rockets were fired at Kabul’s international airport but were intercepted by a missile defense system, a US official told Reuters.

An Afghan official, speaking on condition of anonymity out of security concerns, said that three children were among the dead. It is not known where the children killed in the incident were at the time of the explosion.

The death toll is expected to rise with Afghan TV presenter Muslim Shirzad reporting that as many as six children were dead and nine people in total, including an interpreter who had worked with US troops, and an Afghan army officer due to get married tomorrow.

The Taliban said it welcomed the drone strike in an apparent sign of uneasy co-operation on security around the airport. 

Claims of Afghans being killed by friendly fire came as:  

Multiple rockets have been fired at Kabul airport in just the latest attack as the US races to get its last troops out of Afghanistan before the August 31 deadline;Foreign Office Minister James Cleverly admitted the Government has no idea how many Afghan citizens the UK left behind in Afghanistan;Dominic Raab will be ‘toast’ at Boris Johnson’s next Cabinet reshuffle because of his handling of the UK’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, it was claimed todayBritain is facing the biggest terror threat in years, experts have warned the Prime Minister; The Government today said it had received assurances from the Taliban that anybody wishing to leave Afghanistan after August 31 will be allowed to do so;MPs and former military leaders have called on the government to create a new regiment in the British Army for Afghan special forces – just like the Gurkhas.

Two unnamed US officials earlier confirmed to Reuters that American forces had launched a successful strike in the capital city targeting suspected ISIS-K militants.

US Navy Captain Bill Urban, a military spokesman, had earlier said the military was investigating whether there were civilian casualties but that ‘we have no indications at this time’.

‘We are confident we successfully hit the target,’ Urban said. ‘Significant secondary explosions from the vehicle indicated the presence of a substantial amount of explosive material.’

Dina Mohammadi said her extended family were in the building and that several of them had been killed, including children. 

Ahmaduddin, a neighbour, said he had collected the bodies of children after the strike, which set off more explosions inside the house.

There were earlier reports of a possible separate incident in which it was claimed a child had been killed in a rocket strike on a house near to the airport. It has since emerged this is the same event. 

A security official from the recently deposed government told AFP a house was struck while a source at the Afghan Ministry of Health separately told the BBC the blast was near the airport, with two witnesses informing Reuters a house north of the airport was struck by a rocket. 

There was no official confirmation and no terrorist group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. A US official told CBS: ‘We are confident we hit the target we were aiming for. Initial reports indicate there were no civilian casualties.’

The official added that the drone strike caused ‘significant secondary explosions’ indicating the presence of a substantial amount of explosive material in the vehicle.

Mr Biden had previously warned another terror attack on the airport was imminent after an attack at Kabul airport carried out by ISIS-K – an Islamic extremist group operating in the Central Asian country – killed 13 American service personnel and scores of Afghans.

The Pentagon said a US drone mission in eastern Afghanistan killed two members of the so-called Islamic State group’s Afghanistan affiliate early on Saturday in retaliation for the airport bombing, and Mr Biden said the extremists can expect more. 

The President and First Lady Jill Biden made an unannounced trip to Delaware on Sunday morning for a ceremony to honour the 13, whose remains were flown back to Dover Air Force Base, where fallen troops’ return to American soil is marked by a solemn movement known as the ‘dignified transfer.’ 

In a statement on Saturday, Mr Biden said: ‘The 13 service members that we lost were heroes who made the ultimate sacrifice in service of our highest American ideals and while saving the lives of others.

‘Their bravery and selflessness has enabled more than 117,000 people at risk to reach safety thus far. May God protect our troops and all those standing watch in these dangerous days.’

Some 300 American citizens are still waiting to be evacuated from Afghanistan, Secretary of State Andrew Blinken revealed, as he warned that ‘this is the most dangerous time in an already extraordinarily dangerous mission’.

The withdrawal of US forces allowed the Taliban to regain power after an almost 20-year war. The President’s allies at home and abroad have openly accused Mr Biden of blindsiding them with his rush to exit by August 31 and slammed his bungled handling of the crisis. 

The last British troops stationed in Afghanistan landed in RAF Brize Norton, Oxfordshire this morning. Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that Britain’s hasty scuttle was ‘the culmination of a mission unlike anything we’ve seen in our lifetimes’.

The British Ambassador to Kabul, Sir Laurie Bristow, vowed to continue to help UK nationals and Afghans who remain in the country and still need help. 

US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan thundered that the US has shown in other countries that it is capable of ‘suppressing the terrorism threat… without a large permanent presence on the ground. And we will do that in Afghanistan as well as we go forward’.    

But untold numbers of vulnerable Afghans, fearful of a return to the brutality of pre-2001 Taliban rule, are likely to be left behind. There also are roughly 280 others who have said they are Americans but have not told the State Department of their plans to leave the country. 

The evacuation of Americans proceeded as tensions rose over the prospect of another IS attack. The State Department issued a new security alert early on Sunday instructing people to leave the airport area immediately ‘due to a specific, credible threat’.

Mr Sullivan said that for those US citizens seeking to leave Afghanistan by Mr Biden’s deadline, ‘we have the capacity to have 300 Americans, which is roughly the number we think are remaining, come to the airport and get on planes in the time that is remaining’.

He added: ‘We moved out more than that number just yesterday. So from our point of view, there is an opportunity right now for American citizens to come, to be admitted to the airport and to be evacuated safely and effectively.’

He also pledged the US ‘will make sure there is safe passage for any American citizen, any legal permanent resident’ after Tuesday, as well as for ‘those Afghans who helped us’.

Mr Sullivan said the US would continue strikes against IS and consider ‘other operations to go after these guys, to get them and to take them off the battlefield’. 

He added: ‘We will continue to bring the fight to the terrorists in Afghanistan to make sure they do not represent a threat to the United States.’ 

The administration’s plan ‘is not to have an ongoing embassy presence in Afghanistan’, Mr Sullivan said. 

‘But we will have means and mechanisms of having diplomats on the ground there, be able to continue to process out these applicants, be able to facilitate the passage of other people who want to leave Afghanistan.’ 

The US Embassy said: ‘Due to a specific, credible threat, all U.S. citizens in the vicinity of Kabul airport (HKIA), including the South (Airport Circle) gate, the new Ministry of the Interior and the gate near the Panjshir Petrol station on the northwest side of the airport, should leave the airport area immediately.’ 

Before the warning was issued, Mr Biden vowed that his revenge strike for the terror attack is ‘not the last’ and added that the ‘situation on the ground continues to be extremely dangerous.’

Following the announcement, United States Marines were seen escorting children and families through an evacuation centre in Kabul. 

The Taliban condemned the US drone strike, with a spokesman describing the operation as a ‘clear attack on Afghan territory’. ‘The Americans should have informed us before conducting the airstrike,’ spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told Reuters on Saturday.

However, Mujahid later took to Twitter to disavow the interview, writing: ‘Reuters has interviewed me and distorted my words. I urge the media and journalists not to take these words seriously.’ 

Mujahid claimed that two women and a child were wounded in the drone strike. The Pentagon says it is not aware of any civilian casualties. 

The Pentagon earlier confirmed that two ISIS-K targets were killed and one wounded in the drone strike responding to the suicide attack in Kabul, after earlier confirming only one kill. 

The two killed targets were ‘high profile’, but were not senior members of ISIS-K, Army Major Gen. William D. ‘Hank’ Taylor said at a Pentagon briefing on Saturday, saying there were no known civilian casualties. 

The retaliatory strike was launched a day after an ISIS-K suicide bomber blew himself up outside the walls of Kabul airport, killing 13 US troops and scores of Afghan civilians. 

The terror threat at the airport remains ‘very real’ and ‘very dynamic’ Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said on Saturday.

‘Threats are still very real, they’re very dynamic and we are monitoring them literally in real time. And as I said yesterday, we’re taking all the means necessary to make sure we remain focused on that threat stream and doing what we can for force protection,’ Kirby said at a briefing. 

The Pentagon described the two targets killed in the drone strike as a ‘planner’ and ‘facilitator’ of ISIS-K plots who were involved in planning additional future attacks in Kabul, but declined to name them. 

‘They lost a planner and they lost a facilitator and got one wounded. The fact that two of these individuals are no longer walking on the face of the Earth, that’s a good thing,’ said Pentagon spokesman John Kirby. 

It was not immediately clear whether the targeted ISIS-K members were directly involved in Thursday’s airport attack. The US military had initially said one person was killed. 

‘They were ISIS-K planners and facilitators and that’s enough reason there alone. I won’t speak to the details of these individuals and what their specific roles might be,’ Kirby said. 

He added: ‘We have the ability and the means to carry over the horizon counterterrorism capabilities and we´re going to defend ourselves.’ 

Kirby declined to say whether all three suspects were intentional targets of the strike, saying: ‘It was a single mission to get these targets and as the assessments and information flowed over time, we were able to recognize that another was killed as well and one wounded.’ 

Another defense official told CNN that the strike on Friday only took place after surveillance on the compound confirmed the target’s wife and children had left. 

Biden authorized the drone strike and it was ordered by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, a defense official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to provide details not yet publicly announced. 

The Pentagon said that 6,800 people had been evacuated from Afghanistan in the past 24 hours, and that 1,400 people are now screened and inside the airport for processing and removal.

Since July, 117,000 people have been evacuated by US and NATO forces, including 5,400 US citizens, said Taylor. 

However, hope for escape is dwindling for anyone not already inside the airport, after the Taliban sealed off access to the airport on Saturday to most Afghans hoping to leave. 

The Pentagon insisted that some gates at the airport remain open and that US passport holders can still get in. 

However, the US Embassy in Kabul issued an urgent alert on Saturday warning citizens not to approach the airport and avoid airport gates.

‘U.S. citizens who are at the Abbey gate, East gate, North gate or the New Ministry of Interior gate now should leave immediately,’ the Embassy said in the alert. 

Mujahid, the Taliban’s main spokesman said on Saturday they would announce a new government for Afghanistan in the coming week. 

He appealed to the United States and other Western nations to maintain diplomatic relations after their withdrawal, which he expected would be completed ‘very soon’. 

There is mounting frustration in Kabul at the severe economic hardship caused by a plummeting currency and rising food prices, with banks still shuttered two weeks after the fall of the city to the Taliban.

Mujahid said officials had already been appointed to run key institutions including the ministries of public health and education and the central bank.

Meanwhile, the US rescue operation is entering in its final hours ahead of President Joe Biden’s Tuesday deadline for withdrawal, and US troops will now shift their focus to the final removal or destruction of equipment and extraction of service members. 

Most NATO nations have now flown out their troops after two decades in Afghanistan, winding down a frantic airlift that Western leaders acknowledged was still leaving many of their citizens and local allies behind.

The United States, which says the round-the-clock flights have evacuated more than 100,000 people since the Taliban claimed Kabul on August 15, was keeping up airlifts ahead of Biden’s Tuesday deadline.

Britain also was carrying out its final evacuation flights Saturday, though Prime Minister Boris Johnson promised to ‘shift heaven and earth’ to get more of those at risk from the Taliban to Britain by other means.

Britain’s ambassador to Afghanistan, Laurie Bristow, said in a video from Kabul airport and posted on Twitter that it was ‘time to close this phase of the operation now.’

‘But we haven´t forgotten the people who still need to leave,’ he said. ‘We´ll continue to do everything we can to help them. Nor have we forgotten the brave, decent people of Afghanistan. They deserve to live in peace and security.’

Taliban forces were holding some positions within the airport, ready to peacefully take control as American forces fly out, spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said. 

The Pentagon stressed Friday that the Taliban, who now run Afghanistan, were not in control of any operations at the airport.

Outside the airport, Taliban leaders deployed extra forces Saturday to prevent large crowds from gathering after a devastating suicide attack two days earlier,

New layers of checkpoints sprang up on roads leading to the airport, some manned by uniformed Taliban fighters with Humvees and night-vision goggles captured from Afghan security forces. 

Areas where large crowds had gathered over the past two weeks in the hopes of fleeing the country were largely empty.

A suicide attack Thursday by an Islamic State group affiliate killed 169 Afghans and 13 U.S. service members, and there were concerns that the group, which is far more radical than the Taliban, could strike again. The U.S. military said it killed an IS militant early Saturday in a drone strike, after U.S. President Joe Biden promised swift retaliation.

The president traveled to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware on Sunday to receive their remains, with their family members present. 

An Afghan who worked as a translator for the U.S. military said he was with a group of people with permission to leave who tried to reach the airport late Friday. After passing through three checkpoints they were stopped at a fourth. An argument ensued, and the Taliban said they had been told by the Americans to only let U.S. passport-holders through.

‘I am so hopeless for my future,’ the man told The Associated Press after returning to Kabul, speaking on condition of anonymity because of security concerns. ‘If the evacuation is over, what will happen to us?’

The Pentagon said Friday that Afghans with the proper documents still were being allowed in.

On Saturday, the Taliban fired warning shots and deployed some kind of colored smoke on a road leading to the airport, sending dozens of people scattering, according to a video circulating online that was consistent with AP reporting.

Afghans, meanwhile, faced economic crises as many Western governments withheld support from Taliban rule.

In Kabul, hundreds of protesters, including many civil servants, gathered outside a bank while countless more lined up at cash machines. They said they hadn’t been paid for three to six months and were unable to withdraw cash. ATM machines were still operating, but withdrawals were limited to about $200 every 24 hours.

Later Saturday, the central bank ordered commercial bank branches to open and allow customers to withdraw $200 per week, calling it a temporary measure.

The economic crisis, which predates the Taliban takeover, could give Western nations leverage as they urge Afghanistan’s new rulers to form a moderate, inclusive government and allow people to leave after Tuesday.

Afghanistan is heavily dependent on international aid, which covered around 75% of the toppled Western-backed government’s budget. The Taliban have said they want good relations with the international community and have promised a more moderate form of Islamic rule than when they last governed the country, but many Afghans are deeply skeptical.

The Taliban cannot access almost any of the central bank´s $9 billion in reserves, most of which is held by the New York Federal Reserve. The International Monetary Fund has also suspended the transfer of some $450 million. Without a regular supply of U.S. dollars, the local currency is at risk of collapse, which could send the price of basic goods soaring.

A U.N. agency warned Saturday that a worsening drought threatens the livelihoods of more than 7 million people. The Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organization said Afghans are also suffering from the coronavirus pandemic and displacement from the recent fighting.

Earlier this month, the U.N. World Food Program estimated that about 14 million people – roughly one out of every three Afghans – urgently needed food assistance.

Biden has said he will adhere to a self-imposed Tuesday deadline for withdrawing all U.S. forces. The Taliban, who control nearly the entire country outside of Kabul’s airport, have rejected any extension.

Italy said its final evacuation flight had landed in Rome but that it would work with the United Nations and countries bordering Afghanistan to continue helping Afghans who had worked with its military contingent to leave the country.

‘Our imperative must be to not abandon the Afghan people,’ especially women and children, Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio said Saturday.

The Taliban have encouraged Afghans to stay, pledging amnesty even to those who fought against them. They have said commercial flights will resume after the U.S. withdrawal, but it’s unclear if airlines will be willing to offer service.

The U.S. and its allies have said they will continue providing humanitarian aid through the U.N. and other partners, but any broader engagement – including development assistance – is likely to hinge on whether the Taliban deliver on their promises of more moderate rule.

Taliban fighters beat up a cameraman for the private broadcaster Tolo TV earlier this week in Kabul. Saad Mohseni, the CEO of the group that owns the channel, said the Taliban have been in touch with the station’s management about the incident. He said the fighter has been identified, but it’s unclear if he has faced any disciplinary action. There was no comment from the Taliban. 

‘A mission unlike anything we’ve seen in our lifetimes’: Boris Johnson praises UK troops as they land in UK on last flight out of Kabul – but PM says Britain ‘will return’ amid strain on Biden relationship after 150 Brits and 1,000 Afghans were left behind

By JACK WRIGHT, CHRIS JEWERS and ROSS IBBETSON for MAILONLINE

Boris Johnson has described Britain’s hasty scuttle from Afghanistan as ‘the culmination of a mission unlike anything we’ve seen in our lifetimes’ as the last British troops landed in RAF Brize Norton this morning, bringing our two decades of involvement in the country to an end. 

In a video clip uploaded to Twitter on Sunday, the Prime Minister said: ‘UK troops and officials have worked around the clock to a remorseless deadline in harrowing conditions. They have expended all the patience and care and thought they possess to help people in fear for their lives.

‘They’ve seen at first-hand barbaric terrorist attacks on the queues of people they were trying to comfort, as well as on our American friends. They didn’t flinch. They kept calm. They got on with the job. It’s thanks to their colossal exertions that this country has now processed, checked, vetted and airlifted more than 15,000 people to safety in less than two weeks.’  

The final British troops and diplomatic staff were airlifted from Kabul on Saturday, drawing to a close Britain’s 20-year engagement in Afghanistan and a two-week operation to rescue trapped British nationals and Afghan allies who assisted us during our intervention.

A Voyager aircraft touched down at RAF Brize Norton airfield in Oxfordshire this morning, with roughly 250 personnel on board including members of 16 Air Assault Brigade who were stationed at Kabul airport. The plane flew in from Al Minhad airfield in the United Arab Emirates near Dubai where the UK’s evacuation flights from Afghanistan first landed.

British Ambassador to Afghanistan Sir Laurie Bristow, who had been processing those fleeing the country at Hamid Karzai International Airport until the last moment, was among those who landed at RAF Brize Norton base. Further flights carrying personnel are expected later on Sunday.

Speaking on the runway, Sir Laurie vowed to continue to help British nationals and Afghans who remain in the country and still need help. He also said: ‘It’s been an extraordinary, intense effort by the Foreign Office, the military and Border Force together to bring over 15,000 people to safety in under two weeks.’ 

As images from inside military aircraft were shared online by The Parachute Regiment and the Ministry of Defence last night showing exhausted British troops leaving Kabul, the Prime Minister pledged to return to war-torn Afghanistan when it is safe to do so. 

Operation Pitting, the largest UK military evacuation since the Second World War, airlifted more than 15,000 people in a fortnight on more than 100 RAF flights. It included 5,000 British nationals and their families and more than 8,000 Afghan former UK staff and their relatives. 

However, 150 British nationals and more than 1,000 Afghans who assisted British forces during the intervention have been left behind. Government sources insisted Britain’s absence from the war-ravaged country was only temporary.

US President Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw his forces by the end of the month left Mr Johnson with no alternative but to follow suit – putting the so-called ‘special relationship’ under strain and prompting angry Tory MPs to question Mr Biden’s suitability for the White House. 

Yesterday, Mr Biden said that another attack on the Kabul airport could be imminent, while vowing that his revenge strike for an ISIS-K attack that killed 13 US troops is ‘not the last’. 

As the US military rushes into the final evacuation of Kabul airport ahead of Mr Biden’s Tuesday deadline for withdrawal, the President defended his drone strike, which the Pentagon said killed two ISIS-K ‘planners and facilitators’ in response to the deadly suicide bomb attack. 

The Taliban condemned the US drone strike, with a spokesman describing the operation as a ‘clear attack on Afghan territory’.

Around 2,200 children were evacuated, the youngest just a day old. Afghan ‘sleeper’ agents who fed intelligence to MI6, including information about the suicide bomb attack at Kabul airport last week, have also been whisked to safety. 

In a bid to put a positive gloss on the withdrawal, the Prime Minister vowed to ‘use all the diplomatic and humanitarian tools at our disposal to preserve the gains of the last 20 years’. 

Addressing the families and loved ones of the British troops who ‘gave their all’, Mr Johnson said: ‘Your suffering and your hardship were not in vain.’ He added: ‘It was no accident that there’s been no terrorist attack launched against Britain or any other western country from Afghanistan in the last 20 years.

‘It was thanks to the bravery of our Armed Forces who fought to knock out (Osama) Bin Laden’s networks. Thanks to the devotion of British troops and aid workers and diplomats and others, we’ve helped educate 3.6 million girls. Whatever the future may hold for Afghanistan, they will have that gift for the rest of their lives, a gift they will pass on to their daughters as well as their sons.’

Speaking at RAF Brize Norton, Vice-Admiral Ben Key, Chief of Joint Operations, who commands Operation Pitting, said: ‘Although the United Kingdom’s Operation Pitting finishes today, of course the United States are still engaged in their own withdrawal and I would be very nervous in saying we had completed a successful withdrawal from Afghanistan until all our allies and partners have returned.

‘The United States has provided the framework for security in Kabul as part of a huge international effort and so operations continue even if the UK’s particular contribution concludes today.’

On the fact that not everyone eligible for evacuation from Kabul could be rescued, he said: ‘That is both true and a matter of great sadness for all of us that have been involved in this.

‘Whilst we recognise and I pay testament to the achievement of everything that has been achieved by coalition forces, but particularly the British contingent, over the last two weeks, in the end we know that there are some really sad stories of people who have desperately tried to leave that we have – no matter how hard our efforts – we have been unsuccessful in evacuating.’

Vice-Admiral Key added: ‘There has been a phenomenal effort achieved in the last two weeks. And I think we always knew that somewhere we would fall just short.

‘So, this isn’t a moment of celebration for us at all, this is a moment to mark a tremendous international effort to evacuate as many people as we could in the time available.

‘That sense of sadness that we haven’t done all we would have wished and we will continue to work … in the future with the next leadership of Afghanistan, with the Taliban, and others to make sure those who would wish to come back to his country continue to have an opportunity to do so.

‘Sadly, we have just not been able to evacuate them under this framework.’

Speaking to the PA news agency, Vice-Admiral Key said pictures from the airlifts showed UK service personnel were ‘deeply tired’ having ‘given their all over the last two weeks’.

He said: ‘Some of the pictures that have come back in the last few days have painted a really good impression of just how desperate and difficult those conditions have been in the last few weeks.

‘The pictures of them sitting in the aircraft coming back, these are deeply tired people who have given of their all over the last two weeks. They have travelled with very little equipment – we didn’t allow them to carry much kit – and in many cases they have lived in the clothes they have been wearing for many days.

‘They have been sleeping in rough conditions, eating off ration packs and their sole motivation has been to help as many of the Afghans and British entitled personnel as they possibly could.

‘It’s been a combination of deep professionalism, considerable courage, really sophisticated judgment and, on occasion, huge compassion, and it’s been difficult for those of us back here not to just have the most enormous admiration for what they’ve done and how they’ve gone about it.’

Vice-Admiral Key continued: ‘Am I optimistic for the future? I think I watch with interest. I am hopeful the investment we have made will grow into greater things, but I don’t think there’s any of us would say the last 20 years have not been worth it.’

On the evacuation effort, he said: ‘Of course we would have liked (more time) because then we could have brought more people out.

‘It would have allowed us to pull in those people who we know were still trying to get across from the city to the airport.

‘It would have given us a chance to really make sure we had reached out to those who had helped us so wonderfully and courageously over the last 20 years.

‘But the truth is no more time was granted to us by the Taliban, who were very clear that by the end of August not only had the evacuation had to be completed but we, the western militaries, had all withdrawn as well.

‘I don’t think there is a single person deployed forward, whether the thousand or so in Kabul or the many hundreds of others drawn across from Her Majesty’s Government in the Middle East or back here, who could have given more in the last two, two-and-a-half, weeks.

‘The effort has been, frankly, truly humbling to see hours worked with exhaustion painted on people’s faces, so we tried our best, we have absolutely tried our best.’

Sir Laurie said: ‘It’s time to close this phase of the operation now, but we haven’t forgotten the people who still need to leave.’

A former head of the British Army has said it was ‘unfathomable why it would appear that the Government was asleep on watch’ in relation to the protection of Afghans who helped soldiers and officials.

Speaking on Times Radio, General Lord Richard Dannatt said: ‘On the particular issue of those who we knew were in danger, people who had worked for us, interpreters, former locally-engaged civilians, this issue has been in the media.

‘This issue has been on politicians’ desks for two to three years and, certainly, it’s been there during the course of this year.

‘I mean, you might remember, back in July, 45 senior officers wrote to the Government, an open letter to the Government, saying there are people we are concerned about and if we don’t do the right thing, their blood will be on our hands. It is unfathomable why it would appear that the Government was asleep on watch.

‘I think the issue of Afghanistan sat on the backburner. Maybe it started to come forward. But then, suddenly, when the Taliban took over the country in the precipitate fashion in which they did, it fell off the cooker straight onto the kitchen floor and we’ve … had this chaotic extraction.

‘We should have done better, we could have done better. It absolutely behoves us to find out why the Government didn’t spark up faster.’

Conservative MP and veteran Tobias Ellwood said the UK had ‘very little to show’ for 20 years in Afghanistan. The chairman of the Commons Defence Select Committee told LBC: ‘Our armed forces performed so valiantly but they were let down by their political masters.

‘We lacked the strategy, the statecraft, the patience to see through, and the manner of our departure is a humiliation, a confirmation of our diminished resolve, and our adversaries will not be slow to exploit it.’

He warned that ‘terrorism will raise its ugly face again’ and ‘until we defeat this ideology, we can have as many drone strikes as we like, we can invade as many countries as we like, we will never win’.

Mr Ellwood added: ‘Unfortunately, we’ve made the situation worse, by absenting ourselves from the very place where it’s now very easy for terrorist groups to do their work.’

Mr Johnson said: ‘Twenty years ago, in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the first British soldier set foot on Afghan soil aiming to create a brighter future for the country and all its people. The departure of the last British soldiers from the country is a moment to reflect on everything we have sacrificed and everything we have achieved in the last two decades.

‘The nature of our engagement in Afghanistan may have changed, but our goals for the country have not. We will now use all the diplomatic and humanitarian tools at our disposal to preserve the gains of the last 20 years and give the Afghan people the future they deserve.’ 

The final flight from Kabul marks the end of a fraught period for Mr Johnson’s administration. Footage purporting to show British troops inside a military aircraft as it left Kabul was last night posted on social media.

Despite the deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan, a Government source insisted: ‘We intend to re-establish our diplomatic presence in Kabul as soon as the security and political situation in the country allows and are co-ordinating this effort with allies.’

By yesterday afternoon, the number of Afghans brought to the UK had reached 10,000 – double the number anticipated, with the UK evacuating more people than any country apart from the US.     

Video and pictures from inside military aircraft shared online by The Parachute Regiment on Saturday showed British troops leaving the Afghan capital.

The Ministry of Defence, which also later released its own images, told the MailOnline that soldiers were in the process of being withdrawn.

The footage, along with pictures of British solders on military aircraft, was shared by the official Twitter account of The Parachute Regiment on Saturday at 12:25pm GMT (16:55pm in Afghanistan). 

The video showed smiling soldiers sitting on the floor of the aircraft listening to ‘Ride of the Valkyries’, while the pictures – taken in the dark – showed troops sitting and facing the front of the aircraft.  

Thousands of refugees have been unable to get to the Taliban-guarded airport or are too fearful to do so for the constant threat of terrorism. On Thursday, an ISIS suicide bomber killed at least 170 people, including 13 U.S. soldiers, two Britons and the child of a UK national outside the airport walls. 

Meanwhile, it was reported that the Taliban had sealed off Kabul’s airport to most Afghans hoping for evacuation, as most Nato nations flew out their troops after two decades in Afghanistan, winding down a frantic airlift that Western leaders acknowledged was still leaving many of their citizens and local allies behind.

The Pentagon announced yesterday it carried out a retaliatory drone strike that killed two ISIS ‘planners and facilitators’ and wounded another militant in Nangahar province, eastern Afghanistan. 

Washington described them as ‘high profile ISIS targets’ but would not specify their roles in the airport bombing.   

U.S. troops now face a ‘very difficult’ few days acting as the ‘rear guard’ to the withdrawal, he added.  It has also emerged that British troops helped the last Afghan evacuee climb over a barbed wire fence into Kabul airport, it has been revealed today.

The rescue of Sayed – along with his wife, their three-month-old baby and three-year-old son – came as officials complained Pen Farthing’s pets had been saved while interpreters remained stranded.

Sayed, a 32-year-old interpreter who was blown up while working for the UK in 2011, became the last person who served along-side British forces to be allowed inside Kabul airport and processed for a flight to the UK, The Sunday Times reported.

The rescue of Sayed and his family was ordered by senior figures inside the Ministry of Defence (MoD) after the gates to the airport were closed to new arrivals.

Before his escape, the Afghan father had spent more than four days trying to find a way to the airport’s Abbey Gate where British troops were clearing those who were eligible for sanctuary in the UK.

Despite being part of the crowd ordered to leave by the Taliban, who now control Kabul and most of Afghanistan following their take-over this month, Sayed told the newspaper that he stood his ground refusing to give up hope.

The interpreter stood in the baking sun for hours wading through sewage, all while holding his young daughter, but after reaching the correct gate he was not called forward.

After Thursday evening’s suicide bombing that killed an estimated 170 people, he and his family were forced to give up hope and return to their home.

Speaking earlier this week, Sayed had said that it hurt that his name was not called at the gate after working for Britain as an interpreter. 

‘I always put my life in danger to save British troops because we were living as brothers,’ he said, according to The Sunday Times. ‘But now that we need them the most, no one will hear us.’

During the time in which Sayed was trying to escape the capital via the airport, former British Marine Paul ‘Pen’ Farthing’s campaign to put pressure on officials to allow him to fly to Britain with over 180 rescue animals succeeded.

While gaining huge support, the campaign led by the founder of the Nowzad animal shelter was also accused of taking up resources that could have been used to evacuate more people from Kabul.

MoD officials – frustrated that Mr Farthing’s animals were being saved while Afghans loyal to Britain were set to be left behind – picked up Sayed’s case.

Despite the gates to the airport officially being closed to prepare for the final evacuation flights from Kabul, British troops were ordered to find him.

On Friday night, Sayed received a call from a British interpreter to take a taxi to the airport and once again go to the gate. He said he had to walk 30 minutes after the taxi ride to reach the gate, where he found that there was another large crowd.

Sayed was once again called by the interpreter, who told him to leave the crowd and signalled him with a light.

‘When I reached the light the British forces took me and my family over the barbed wire. It was amazing, I am happy now,’ he told The Sunday Times. ‘I thank everyone who worked hard for my family.’ 

Sayed worked with UK forces for three years. He was given permission to come to the UK months ago, but his baby was born before the flight meaning officials required more paperwork.

As the Taliban swept across the country and seized Kabul, the family’s passports were with the British embassy, leading to further delays.

But after a 100-hour battle to get him out of the capital before it became impossible, Sayed and his family are on their way to start a new life in the UK.

‘I think our American allies are going to be very challenged because the threat from ISIS-K has not gone away and of course there are still lots of desperate Afghans trying to get out,’ Sir Nick said.    

General Sir Richard Barrons warned that ISIS now posed a threat which reached beyond Afghanistan to the UK. 

‘What [the suicide bombing] does do is illustrate that Isis-K is a risk to the United Kingdom, here at home, and to our interests abroad,’ the general said.

‘We’re going to find common cause with the US, and indeed I think the Taliban, in bearing down on this terrible organisation for as long as it takes to neuter them.’  

The MoD said last night that 14,543 people had now been extracted from Kabul since August 13, a mix of Afghan and British nationals, and that now the focus would turn to getting diplomats and service personnel out. 

Some 8,000 of those were Afghans and their families under the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (Arap) scheme, which applies to those who helped the UK and are at risk of persecution by the Taliban. 

Tory MP and Afghan veteran Tom Tugenhadt said people should ‘forget’ about getting to Kabul and attempting to fly from the airport, due to the numerous dangerous checkpoints that have been installed along the motorways.

He told BBC Breakfast: ‘Forget about getting to Kabul. You know there’s 10 checkpoints between them on the motorway, let alone down the motorway, all the way to Kabul.

‘You can absolutely forget about trying to get to the airport because every one of those checkpoints has a danger point where Taliban or indeed affiliated groups, drug dealers or just simply bandits could murder, and certainly have, been murdering various people.’

The chairman of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee added: ‘I’m extremely sad about this and I very much hope that it might go beyond the August deadline but we found out a few days ago that it wasn’t, so I was expecting it.

‘It still leaves me extremely sad that so many of my friends have been left behind.’

Questioned over whether the UK could have done better when withdrawing personnel from Afghanistan, Mr Tugendhat said: ‘In the last week, probably not, but this has been a sprint finish after a not exactly sprint start.’

‘There are going to be questions to be asked to the Foreign Secretary about the processing in the UK in recent weeks that we’re going to have to see what the answers are.’ 

Defence Secretary Ben Wallace previously admitted there were between 800 and 1,100 Afghans eligible under the Afghan Relocation and Assistance Policy (Arap) scheme who would be left behind, while around 100 and 150 UK nationals will remain in Afghanistan, although Mr Wallace said some of those were staying willingly.

But a number of MPs have said that based on the correspondence they had received asking for help, they thought this was an underestimation.

Shadow defence secretary John Healey said: ‘This is the brutal truth, despite getting more than 14,000 people out, there are probably 1,000 Afghans who have worked with us over two decades in Afghanistan, helped our troops, our aid workers, our diplomats, that we promised to protect, but we’re leaving behind.

‘And I know those troops in particular will feel our failure on this as a country is a betrayal of many of those who risked their own lives to work alongside us.

‘And I think what’s important now is that we may be giving up the airport, but we cannot give up on the Afghan people or fighting to try and protect the gains that they and our troops and our diplomats and aid workers have worked so hard over two decades to gain in Afghanistan.’ 

Mr Johnson has admitted he felt a ‘great sense of regret’ about the many hundreds that UK forces had been unable to evacuate from Kabul. 

Tom Tugendhat, the chair of the Foreign Affairs committee, said the fact people would be left behind filled him with ‘anger and shame’ and warned ‘we may find ourselves with the biggest hostage crisis the UK has ever seen.’ 

‘Quite rightly, British citizens and entitled persons are literally in fear of their lives right now.’

The former Army Lieutenant Colonel is one of a growing number of MPs from across the political spectrum to have accused the Government of ‘failing’ in its mission to keep Afghan staff safe by not completing the evacuations.

Mr Tugendhat added: ‘Defeat means you don’t get a say… we have just been defeated, we have no influence over Kabul anymore.’  

And security sources said they feared that elements of the Taliban or Isis-K could capture vulnerable Afghans or UK citizens and demand a ransom. 

Prime Minister Boris Johnson spoke of his ‘great sense of regret’ at those left behind. He said: ‘Of course, as we come down to the final hours of the operation there will sadly be people who haven’t got through, people who might qualify.

‘What I would say to them is that we will shift heaven and earth to help them get out, we will do whatever we can in the second phase.’   

One of the victims of Thursday’s Kabul suicide bombing has been named as Muhammad Niazi, a British Afghan who travelled there from London to help his family at the airport, according to the BBC.

As of last night, his wife, youngest child and eldest daughter were still missing, with his brother and survivor of the blast, Abdul Hamid, telling the broadcaster: ‘I saw some small children in the river, it was so bad. It was doomsday for us.’  

According to The Daily Telegraph, Mr Niazi was a taxi driver from Aldershot who travelled to Afghanistan to rescue his family as the Taliban bore down on the city, and chaos led to scenes of mass panic at the airport. 

It is feared that his wife and two of their daughters were also caught up in the bombing, and possibly killed, and the couple’s other daughter and only son are understood to have been severely injured, the newspaper reported.

He is understood to have flown from Heathrow to Azerbaijan, before travelling to Afghanistan in an attempt to take his family to safety.

Imran Naizi, a friend and member of the same mosque as Muhammad Niazi (of no relation), told The Telegraph that the Afghan community and Aldershot are mourning the loss of a dedicated family man. 

Another 1,000 ‘could’ve been saved if Dominic Raab cut his holiday short’: Up to 9,000 left behind in Kabul as it emerges Foreign Secretary didn’t make a single phone call to Afghan or Pakistani ministers in the six MONTHS before the crisis

By JACK WRIGHT for MAILONLINE

A furious blame game over the Afghanistan crisis has broken out in Whitehall, with Ministers claiming that Dominic Raab’s decision to stay on holiday in the Mediterranean as Kabul fell to the Taliban meant that up to 1,000 people have not been evacuated who otherwise would have been. 

Cabinet Ministers and Whitehall officials have accused the Foreign Office of negligence in preparing escape routes out of war-torn Afghanistan and claimed that up to 9,000 people who could have been eligible for evacuation would be left trapped there.

The Sunday Times reports that the Foreign Secretary did not make a single phone call to the Afghan or Pakistani Foreign Ministers in the six months before the Taliban coup because he ‘thought Afghanistan was yesterday’s war and the Government was totally focused on Brexit’.

Mr Raab has faced calls to resign after allegedly defying orders from Downing Street to cut his holiday short by two days before returning to London while Kabul fell to the jihadists. Instead, he was accused of topping up his tan at the Amirandes Hotel in Crete, a five-star resort which boasts its own private beach and ‘one of the biggest pools you’ll ever see,’ according to its website. 

Anyone who gets to a third country and qualifies for the resettlement scheme for Afghan former British staff will be offered a free flight to the UK. However, the neighbouring countries of Pakistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan are reluctant to provide free passage for refugees. 

One Minister told the paper: ‘The Foreign Office failed to roll the pitch with these countries for months. The PM wanted third countries involved and Raab did nothing. Boris is exasperated that the Foreign Office has not done what he told them. They also took their people out and that cost us several days. 

‘I suspect we could have taken out 800 to 1,000 more people if they had not done that.’ 

Operation Pitting, the largest UK military evacuation since the Second World War, airlifted more than 15,000 people in a fortnight on more than 100 RAF flights. It included 5,000 British nationals and their families and more than 8,000 Afghan former UK staff and their relatives. 

However, some 150 British nationals and more than 1,000 Afghans who assisted British forces during the intervention have been left behind. Government sources insisted Britain’s absence from the war-ravaged country was only temporary. 

Labour has accused Government ministers of being ‘missing in action’ during the Afghanistan crisis, with leader Sir Keir Starmer raging: ‘The complacency and incompetence of this Government has been exposed yet again and with tragic consequences.’ 

A senior Pakistani official told the Sunday Times that Mr Raab had shown no interest in talking to Islamabad in the months before the takeover because ‘he just didn’t care’. ‘He thought Afghanistan was yesterday’s war and the Government was totally focused on Brexit,’ the official added.

It is understood that Mr Raab had spoken twice to the Pakistani Foreign Minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, on August 22 and again on Friday – but he apparently did not have earlier conversations.

Responsibility for speaking to the Afghan Foreign Minister was delegated to Lord Ahmad, the Minister for South Asia. However, earlier reports alleged that Lord Ahmad was on leave when the Taliban marched into Kabul. 

A Foreign Office spokesman told MailOnline: ‘We have been working tirelessly to evacuate over 15,000 people from Afghanistan in the last two weeks. We deployed a 24/7 cross-Whitehall team based in our crisis hub to triage incoming emails and calls from British Nationals, ARAP applicants, and other vulnerable Afghans.

‘We always cautioned that the nature of the security situation in Afghanistan and our responsibility to keep our people safe meant that we would not be able to evacuate everyone we wanted to. Our efforts have now turned to doing everything we can to help any remaining British nationals and the Afghans who supported us leave Afghanistan safely.’ 

Sir Keir slammed the Government’s handling of the crisis, adding: ‘We’ve known for 18 months that this moment was coming. It is unconscionable that there was no strategy in place to get all the British nationals and Afghans we owed a debt to out. 

‘I pay tribute to all the FCDO staff and military personnel who have, as ever, stepped up when their leaders have failed them.

‘The fact that so many emails have simply gone unopened is not the fault of civil servants but of government ministers who have been missing in action during this whole crisis. MPs and their staff have been hearing harrowing stories from so many people we should have taken care of but who have been abandoned to the Taliban.’

Labour MPs tweeted about the efforts their staff had gone to collate the information to send to officials. Sir Keir added: ‘Can the Government tell us how many of the people in those emails got out, or more importantly haven’t who were eligible to?

‘We need urgent answers from the Prime Minister on what will be done to ensure the safety of those left behind, on proper support for MPs to be able to do their job and on new leadership at the Foreign Office. 

‘Serious times call for serious leadership and this Government simply isn’t up to the job.’

Boris Johnson has described Britain’s hasty scuttle from Afghanistan as ‘the culmination of a mission unlike anything we’ve seen in our lifetimes’ as the last remaining British troops leave Kabul, bringing our two decades of military involvement in the country to an end.

In a video clip uploaded to Twitter on Sunday, the Prime Minister said: ‘UK troops and officials have worked around the clock to a remorseless deadline in harrowing conditions. They have expended all the patience and care and thought they possess to help people in fear for their lives.

‘They’ve seen at first-hand barbaric terrorist attacks on the queues of people they were trying to comfort, as well as on our American friends. They didn’t flinch. They kept calm. They got on with the job. It’s thanks to their colossal exertions that this country has now processed, checked, vetted and airlifted more than 15,000 people to safety in less than two weeks.’   

As images from inside military aircraft were shared online by The Parachute Regiment and the Ministry of Defence last night showing exhausted British troops leaving Kabul, Mr Johnson pledged to return to Afghanistan when it is safe to do so. 

In a bid to put a positive gloss on Britain’s departure, the Prime Minister vowed to ‘use all the diplomatic and humanitarian tools at our disposal to preserve the gains of the last 20 years’. 

Addressing the families and loved ones of the British troops who ‘gave their all’, Mr Johnson said: ‘Your suffering and your hardship were not in vain.’ He added: ‘It was no accident that there’s been no terrorist attack launched against Britain or any other western country from Afghanistan in the last 20 years.

‘It was thanks to the bravery of our Armed Forces who fought to knock out (Osama) Bin Laden’s networks. Thanks to the devotion of British troops and aid workers and diplomats and others, we’ve helped educate 3.6 million girls.

‘Whatever the future may hold for Afghanistan, they will have that gift for the rest of their lives, a gift they will pass on to their daughters as well as their sons.’ 

US President Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw his forces by the end of the month left Mr Johnson with no alternative but to follow suit – putting the so-called ‘special relationship’ under strain and prompting angry Tory MPs to question Mr Biden’s suitability for the White House. 

Yesterday, Mr Biden said that another attack on the Kabul airport could be imminent, while vowing that his revenge strike for an ISIS-K attack that killed 13 US troops is ‘not the last.’ 

‘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,’ the President said in a statement on Saturday. 

As the US military rushes into the final evacuation of Kabul airport ahead of Mr Biden’s Tuesday deadline for withdrawal, the President defended his drone strike, which the Pentagon said killed two ISIS-K ‘planners and facilitators’ in response to the deadly suicide bomb attack.

‘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,’ Mr Biden said in the written statement.

The Taliban condemned the US drone strike, with a spokesman describing the operation as a ‘clear attack on Afghan territory’.

Around 2,200 children were evacuated, the youngest just a day old.  Afghan ‘sleeper’ agents who fed intelligence to MI6, including information about the suicide bomb attack at Kabul airport last week, have also been whisked to safety.   

Speaking at RAF Brize Norton, Vice-Admiral Ben Key, Chief of Joint Operations, who commands Operation Pitting, said: ‘Although the United Kingdom’s Operation Pitting finishes today, of course the United States are still engaged in their own withdrawal and I would be very nervous in saying we had completed a successful withdrawal from Afghanistan until all our allies and partners have returned.

‘The United States has provided the framework for security in Kabul as part of a huge international effort and so operations continue even if the UK’s particular contribution concludes today.’

On the fact that not everyone eligible for evacuation from Kabul could be rescued, he said: ‘That is both true and a matter of great sadness for all of us that have been involved in this.

‘Whilst we recognise and I pay testament to the achievement of everything that has been achieved by coalition forces, but particularly the British contingent, over the last two weeks, in the end we know that there are some really sad stories of people who have desperately tried to leave that we have – no matter how hard our efforts – we have been unsuccessful in evacuating.’

Vice-Admiral Key added: ‘There has been a phenomenal effort achieved in the last two weeks. And I think we always knew that somewhere we would fall just short.

‘So, this isn’t a moment of celebration for us at all, this is a moment to mark a tremendous international effort to evacuate as many people as we could in the time available.

‘That sense of sadness that we haven’t done all we would have wished and we will continue to work … in the future with the next leadership of Afghanistan, with the Taliban, and others to make sure those who would wish to come back to his country continue to have an opportunity to do so.

‘Sadly, we have just not been able to evacuate them under this framework.’

Speaking to the PA news agency, Vice-Admiral Key said pictures from the airlifts showed UK service personnel were ‘deeply tired’ having ‘given their all over the last two weeks’.

He said: ‘Some of the pictures that have come back in the last few days have painted a really good impression of just how desperate and difficult those conditions have been in the last few weeks.

‘The pictures of them sitting in the aircraft coming back, these are deeply tired people who have given of their all over the last two weeks. They have travelled with very little equipment – we didn’t allow them to carry much kit – and in many cases they have lived in the clothes they have been wearing for many days.

‘They have been sleeping in rough conditions, eating off ration packs and their sole motivation has been to help as many of the Afghans and British entitled personnel as they possibly could. 

‘It’s been a combination of deep professionalism, considerable courage, really sophisticated judgment and, on occasion, huge compassion, and it’s been difficult for those of us back here not to just have the most enormous admiration for what they’ve done and how they’ve gone about it.’ 

Vice-Admiral Key continued: ‘Am I optimistic for the future? I think I watch with interest. I am hopeful the investment we have made will grow into greater things, but I don’t think there’s any of us would say the last 20 years have not been worth it.’

On the evacuation effort, he said: ‘Of course we would have liked (more time) because then we could have brought more people out.

‘It would have allowed us to pull in those people who we know were still trying to get across from the city to the airport.

‘It would have given us a chance to really make sure we had reached out to those who had helped us so wonderfully and courageously over the last 20 years.

‘But the truth is no more time was granted to us by the Taliban, who were very clear that by the end of August not only had the evacuation had to be completed but we, the western militaries, had all withdrawn as well.

‘I don’t think there is a single person deployed forward, whether the thousand or so in Kabul or the many hundreds of others drawn across from Her Majesty’s Government in the Middle East or back here, who could have given more in the last two, two-and-a-half, weeks.

‘The effort has been, frankly, truly humbling to see hours worked with exhaustion painted on people’s faces, so we tried our best, we have absolutely tried our best.’

Sir Laurie said: ‘It’s time to close this phase of the operation now, but we haven’t forgotten the people who still need to leave.’

A former head of the British Army has said it was ‘unfathomable why it would appear that the Government was asleep on watch’ in relation to the protection of Afghans who helped soldiers and officials.

Speaking on Times Radio, General Lord Richard Dannatt said: ‘On the particular issue of those who we knew were in danger, people who had worked for us, interpreters, former locally-engaged civilians, this issue has been in the media.

‘This issue has been on politicians’ desks for two to three years and, certainly, it’s been there during the course of this year.

‘I mean, you might remember, back in July, 45 senior officers wrote to the Government, an open letter to the Government, saying there are people we are concerned about and if we don’t do the right thing, their blood will be on our hands. It is unfathomable why it would appear that the Government was asleep on watch.

‘I think the issue of Afghanistan sat on the backburner. Maybe it started to come forward. But then, suddenly, when the Taliban took over the country in the precipitate fashion in which they did, it fell off the cooker straight onto the kitchen floor and we’ve … had this chaotic extraction.

‘We should have done better, we could have done better. It absolutely behoves us to find out why the Government didn’t spark up faster.’

Conservative MP and veteran Tobias Ellwood said the UK had ‘very little to show’ for 20 years in Afghanistan. The chairman of the Commons Defence Select Committee told LBC: ‘Our armed forces performed so valiantly but they were let down by their political masters.

‘We lacked the strategy, the statecraft, the patience to see through, and the manner of our departure is a humiliation, a confirmation of our diminished resolve, and our adversaries will not be slow to exploit it.’

He warned that ‘terrorism will raise its ugly face again’ and ‘until we defeat this ideology, we can have as many drone strikes as we like, we can invade as many countries as we like, we will never win’Mr Ellwood added: ‘Unfortunately, we’ve made the situation worse, by absenting ourselves from the very place where it’s now very easy for terrorist groups to do their work.’

Kabul animal rescuer Pen Farthing is accused of ‘costing lives’ as recording reveals his foul-mouthed rant threatening to ‘f***ing destroy’ an MoD official in the middle of Afghanistan airlift

By GLEN OWEN, POLITICAL EDITOR for the MAIL ON SUNDAY  

A former Royal Marine who founded an animal shelter in Kabul ‘cost lives’ as a result of his mission to evacuate 173 cats and dogs from Afghanistan, senior defence sources said last night.

Pen Farthing, who flew back to the UK last night with his menagerie of animals rescued by the Nowzad charity, has also been accused of ‘bullying’ British Government officials.

A leaked voice message obtained by The Mail on Sunday has revealed the behind-the-scenes bitterness over the airlift, with Mr Farthing telling an Ministry of Defence official that he would ‘spend the rest of my time f****** destroying’ him if he did not secure clearance for a flight out of the country.

The official, Peter Quentin, an adviser to Defence Secretary Ben Wallace, is understood to have also received death threats from supporters of Mr Farthing as a result of his involvement in the animal rescue.

On the recording, which was shared by officials as part of an investigation into the alleged threats, Mr Farthing can be heard demanding ‘an ISAF number’ – a military callsign which has not been in use since 2014 – for a charter plane to take him, his animals and staff out of the Afghan capital.

Mr Farthing, who served 22 years in the military, accuses Mr Quentin of ‘blocking’ his efforts to leave the country, saying: ‘Here’s the deal buddy. You either get me that f****** ISAF number and you get me permission to get on that f****** airfield or tomorrow morning I am going to turn on you. The whole f****** country… is going to know that it is you.’

During the two-minute rant, Mr Farthing also says: ‘I served for 22 years for the Royal Marine Commandos. I am not going to take this b******* from people like you.’

Friends of Mr Quentin, who denies trying to block a flight, say he was particularly incensed by the ‘people like you’ line as he has also operated in Afghanistan – learning Dari in the process – and returned several times to conduct research and write a book on the conflict.

They also maintain that Mr Quentin had been personally helping with the evacuation of Afghans and to ensure Nowzad staff were on the evacuation list.

Mr Farthing’s publicity campaign has angered the MoD because of the distraction it has provided from the ‘core mission’ of airlifting refugees. 

A defence source said: ‘This selfish charade has cost lives.’ Another source said the MoD’s help to evacuate animals meant ‘this is the first British Government explicitly committed to the idea of non-white people as equivalent to animals since the abolition of slavery.’

Yesterday, senior Tory MP and former soldier Tom Tugendhat issued a withering condemnation of the way MoD resources had been used for the animal evacuation.

Mr Tugendhat, who served in Afghanistan, revealed how his former interpreter, who is now stuck in Kabul, asked him: ‘Why is my five-year-old worth less than your dog?

‘I didn’t have an answer,’ he says.

The MP, who is chairman of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, told LBC: ‘People have been focusing on the aeroplanes. It’s not the aeroplanes that are the problem. There’s quite a lot of space on the aeroplanes. 

They are coming and going relatively easily. The difficulty is getting people into and out of the airport.

‘And we have just used a lot of troops to bring in 200 dogs. Meanwhile, my interpreter’s family are likely to be killed. We run an NHS in the UK that taxes us all about one in seven pounds we spend. What would you say if I sent an ambulance to save my dog rather than to save your mother?’

Mr Farthing’s flight left without charity staff who were prevented from entering the military-controlled area at Kabul airport, despite having been granted visas for the UK. 

They had helped to bring the pets to the airport in two cattle trucks. Mr Farthing said armed Taliban militants stopped the Afghan staff from crossing into the British-controlled zone where they could board the privately chartered flight to the UK.

Speaking about his staff members, Mr Farthing, whose real name is Paul, said: ‘It is just so depressing that I had to leave them behind. Some of them came with me to the airport but they weren’t allowed to cross the line from Taliban to British control.

‘I feel so many things. I feel very sad for them, I’m relieved for me and I feel happy for the animals. There were lots of tears when we said goodbye.’

Carrie Johnson’s close friend Nimco Ali made a thinly veiled attack on Mr Farthing on Friday.

In response to a story posted on Twitter by the BBC which told how he said he ‘went through hell’ to reach Kabul airport only to be turned away, the activist wrote: ‘So have countless Afghans. But we don’t know their names and they might never get out.’

Reports had suggested that animal-lover Mrs Johnson had used her influence to lobby for Mr Farthing’s cause, but the Prime Minister firmly denied such claims.

Mr Quentin declined to comment last night and when the MoS contacted Mr Farthing’s wife, Kaisa, about the outburst, she also declined to comment.