Derby Telegraph

Afghan evacuation enters final hours

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BRITAIN’S evacuation effort in Kabul has entered its final hours and has largely ended processing new evacuees, the Defence Secretary has said, as he admitted around 1,000 Afghans could be left behind.

Ben Wallace said yesterday morning as airlifts continued that the mission has not been curtailed by the terror attack that killed US troops and Afghan civilians queuing up to flee the Taliban.

He warned that the threat from terror groups will only “grow the closer we get to leaving” following the bombings believed to have been carried out by the Isis-K affiliate of so-called Islamic State on Thursday.

Despite airlifting nearly 14,000 people out of Afghanista­n in the past two weeks, Mr Wallace said “the sad fact is not every single one will get out”.

He declined to give a timeline for the exit of British forces as they processed approximat­ely a further 1,000 evacuees already in the airport but acknowledg­ed it would come before the Americans withdraw, with US President Joe Biden having set the departure deadline of Tuesday.

Mr Wallace said the Baron Hotel processing centre, near where the suicide bombing took place, was closed at 4.30am, as was the Abbey Gate to Hamid Karzai Internatio­nal Airport. “We will process the people that we’ve brought with us, the 1,000 people approximat­ely in the airfield now, and we will seek a way to continue to find a few people in the crowds where we can, but overall the main processing is now closed and we have a matter of hours,” he told Sky News.

Senior Tory MP Tom Tugendhat said the move means “many” will not now get out, despite Boris Johnson having insisted the “overwhelmi­ng majority” had been airlifted.

“I’m not giving up but my anger and shame for those we’ve left behind to be hunted by the Taliban is growing,” the chair of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee said.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said the looming end of the evacuation from Kabul marks a “sad and dark day”, and the Government has “serious questions to answer”.

He said “with the withdrawal we face the heart-breaking reality that people have been left behind, including many to whom we owe so much”, as he demanded ministers “urgently help” those left behind.

“The British Government must take its fair share of the responsibi­lity and has serious questions to answer about how, despite having 18 months to prepare, their failure to plan and inability to influence others has contribute­d to this tragic political failure,” he added.

Conservati­ve former foreign and defence secretary Lord Hammond told Times Radio that the UK had “failed” in its mission to keep Afghan staff safe by not completing the evacuation­s.

Officials have said at least 13 US troops and 60 Afghan nationals were killed and more than 150 people were injured in a “complex attack” on Thursday.

But Mr Wallace insisted the bombings did not cut short Britain’s evacuation effort, with airlifts continuing throughout yesterday and possibly into today.

“We closed the Baron’s hotel almost exactly on schedule. The explosion was horrendous, but it didn’t hasten our departure,” he told Sky.

Some 13,708 British nationals and vulnerable Afghans have been evacuated so far.

 ??  ?? Defence Secretary Ben Wallace
Defence Secretary Ben Wallace

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