Afghanistan: UK troops to rescue Britons as Taliban advances

About 600 UK troops are to be sent to Afghanistan to assist the 4,000 Britons still in the country to leave, the government has announced.

It comes as the Taliban continue to make rapid gains across Afghanistan. In recent days, militants seized the country’s second-largest city, Kandahar, as well as the cities of Ghazni, Lashkar Gah and Herat.

The Taliban now control a third of Afghanistan’s regional cities and there are fears over the security of the capital, Kabul. According to the Associated Press, US military intelligence assessments warn the capital could come under pressure within 30 days and the entire country could fall to the Taliban within months.

Ben Wallace, the UK Defence Secretary, said the security of British nationals, military personnel and former Afghan staff was the government’s first priority and that it “must do everything we can to ensure their safety”.

He said the deployment of troops, who will be arriving in the coming days, was a “pre-planned phase” and was to “enable the next step of leaving”.

However, the Ministry of Defence admitted the additional deployment was “in light of the increasing violence and rapidly deteriorating security environment in the country”.

The UK embassy in Kabul, which will be reduced to a core team, will be relocated outside of the city to a safer place in the green zone.

The US has also announced that it is deploying about 3,000 soldiers to help the “safe and orderly reduction” of US nationals and Afghans who worked with the Americans and have been granted special immigrant visas.

US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke to Afghan President Ashraf Ghani last night, telling him the US “remains invested in the security and stability of Afghanistan”.

However, the Biden administration is facing widespread criticism over its decision to withdraw from Afghanistan, with critics warning the move will cause a humanitarian disaster and allow the Taliban to take control of the country.

Mitch McConnell, the most senior Republican in Congress, said: “President [Joe] Biden’s decisions have us hurtling toward an even worse sequel to the humiliating fall of Saigon in 1975.” 

He said: “President Biden is finding that the quickest way to end a war is to lose it.”