Dominic Raab says numbers depend on ‘the window’ of opportunity; ‘we are determined to complete this mission’, says US President; reports emerge that US has started to take some of the 6,000 troops out of country
- Boris Johnson fails to persuade US to extend Kabul exit deadline
- Thousands of at-risk Afghans in danger of being left behind by UK
- Taliban close airport road to Afghans to block their evacuation
- Biden pours salt into wounds of relations with Europe at G7 meeting
- How the west will try to sway the Taliban
- See all our Afghanistan coverage
Britain’s failure to persuade the US to extend the evacuation from Afghanistan into September does not mean the “special relationship” with Washington is over, the foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, has said.
He made the comment in an interview following the virtual G7 summit, which resulted in President Biden rejecting calls from the UK and other European partners for the evacuation mission from Afghanistan to be extended beyond 31 August.
Related: US special relationship still alive after Afghan evacuation, says Dominic Raab
Afghanistan’s only boarding school for girls has temporarily relocated to Rwanda, its co-founder has said, just days after a video of her burning class records to avoid Taliban recriminations was widely shared on social media.
Shabana Basij-Rasikh, who escaped Kabul with 250 students and staff, urged the world to “not avert your eyes” from the millions of girls left behind.
Related: ‘Don’t avert your eyes’: Afghan teachers urge world to defend girls’ education
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