Kabul airport back in action

KABUL airport reopened yesterday for domestic flights and will soon resume international services, officials said last night.

Hamid Karzai International Airport closed at midnight on Tuesday as the last American troops flew out after they and British forces conducted one of the largest evacuations in recent decades.

But yesterday, with the help of a technical team from Qatar, the Taliban reopened the airport and two domestic flights took off, to the cities of Mazar-i-Sharif and Kandahar.

The prospect of international flights resuming gives a glimmer of hope to hundreds of British citizens and to Afghan staff who helped the UK and now want to flee the Taliban.

When the Taliban marched into Kabul last month, the airport became the only safe route out of

Afghanistan for thousands of British and American citizens and tens of thousands of Afghans who helped Western forces.

More than 6,000 US troops and around 1,000 British soldiers guarded the airport. The Americans evacuated 120,000 people, and UK forces brought out more than 15,000.

During the evacuation, the airport was targeted by an Islamic State suicide attack which killed 169 people, including 13 American soldiers.