Latest updates: Taliban spokesman says group will not agree to foreign troops staying longer than 31 August
- Afghan guard killed in Kabul airport gun battle
- UK evacuation ‘down to hours not weeks’
- ‘I cry all the time’: plight of Afghan refugees in Calais
Earlier, the defence secretary Ben Wallace warned the mission was “down to hours now, not weeks” and the UK must “exploit every minute” to get people out of Kabul as the window for evacuation narrows.
He told the BBC that when the US withdraws it’s 6,000-strong presence on the ground at Kabul airport, “that will take away the framework that has allowed us to withdraw” and UK forces will have to also go.
I don’t think there is any likelihood of staying on after the United States. Even if their timetable extends, even by a day or two, then that will give us a day or two more to evacuate people, because we really down to hours now, not weeks, and we have to make sure we exploit every minute to get people out.
No 10 also said it was recognised that it would be “extremely challenging” for Afghans who are not in Kabul to get to the airport to evacuate.
The prime minister’s spokesman said:
We’re fully conscious of that. This is the first phase of our operation, evacuating largely British nationals and those under the ARAP (Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy) scheme, out in the time that we have.
We will then move to the next phase, whereby we’ll be able to resettle [people] over the coming days, weeks and months, and indeed years, as we did with the Syrian scheme.
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