We're NOT going to evacuate everyone from Afghanistan: Government admits rescue operation could last just 'a few more days' as planes take off EMPTY
- UK evacuated 963 people from Kabul yesterday and is planning for 1,000 more to leave the country today
- But armed forces minister has been forced to admit that people will get left behind when air bridge closes
- James Heappey said the airport is likely to remain open for just a few more days before troops are pulled out
- It was revealed that planes are still taking off from the airstrip near-empty as the wife of a British ex-Marine boarded a Norwegian plane last night on which she was virtually the only passenger
- Meanwhile Taliban guards at the airport are becoming increasingly violent to huge crowds of people waiting to leave, with one man holding US visas shot in the head yesterday
- Islamists also said to be going through the crowd looking for western collaborators, while elsewhere in the country NATO and US allies have been shot and tortured to death The UK will not be able to evacuate everyone it has promised sanctuary to from Afghanistan and the air bridge to Kabul airport may remain open for just a few more days, the armed forces minister has admitted today.
Britain has promised to evacuate some 7,000 UK citizens and Afghan staff from the country, in addition to 5,000 refugees, but James Heappey said today that 'that sad truth is, we don't have it in our gift to stay there until absolutely everyone is out'.
'The air bridge could last two more days, five more days, ten more days,' he added, insisting that the armed forces are 'working hard to maximise capacity' on every flight while revealing 963 people were taken out of Kabul on British flights yesterday with 1,000 expected to be flown out today.
British special forces are now being sent outside the walls of the airport compound in order to find passport and visa holders and get them past Taliban checkpoints so they can be put on planes home.
But interpreters and Afghan women who served with the special forces say not enough is being done to help as time runs out for them to escape.
Tokhi, 34, a former British interpreter, told The Times that he has been to the airport three times since UK forces emailed him early this week to say he had a seat on a flight out - but has so-far failed to get past even the first of two Taliban checkpoints blocking the entrance he needs to reach.
Meanwhile Shafiqa, who trained with British special forces near Kabul, said she and two female colleagues have filled out forms requesting space on UK flights but have yet to be called to the airport even as the Taliban tries to hunt them down.
The 26-year-old said she has fled her home due to rumours that Islamist fighters have accessed lists of British collaborators and are now using them as hit-lists. She is now moving between houses in the city in the hopes she can dodge the jihadists long enough for space on an evacuation flight to free up.
The US has evacuated some 7,000 people since Sunday, a Pentagon spokesman said yesterday, bringing the total since July to 12,000 with a target of at least 22,000 - though aid groups had said 80,000 would need to be flown out to keep Biden's promise to provide sanctuary to all those who helped US forces.
NATO said a total of 18,000 people have been flown out of the country since Sunday which includes staff of smaller missions - far short of promises by western countries to take more than 100,000 Afghan refugees between them and even as some 50,000 wait for salvation outside the airport gates.
One image laid bare the extent of the empty promises - showing what is thought to be a Norwegian mercy flight taking off from Kabul carrying the wife of a British ex-Marine who is still stranded in Afghanistan, but almost nobody else.
Posting the image on Twitter last night, Paul 'Pen' Farthing wrote: 'Kaisa is on her way home! BUT this aircraft is empty… scandalous as thousands wait outside Kabul airport being crushed as they cannot get in. Sadly people will be left behind when this mission is over as we CANNOT get it right.'
The UK government is thought to be drawing up contingency plans for a hasty 24-hour exit from the country, a medium-term withdrawal over a period of several days, and a more-orderly withdrawal over a longer period.
Whitehall sources told The Times that the longer-term option is preferred as being safer for British troops, but were forced to admit 'we are in the American's hands' - with little indication coming from Washington as to how long they are willing to hold out.
Mr Farthing is one of dozens of westerners and visa holders who say they cannot get to the airport due to the huge crowds gathered around it, who are being brutalised by Taliban guards on a daily basis after the Islamists took over security.
Asila Wardak, human rights commissioner at The Organization of Islamic Cooperation, said a male relative who was carrying travel documents got shot in the head outside the airport whilst begging the US to provide safe passage for all those it has promised sanctuary to so they can leave the country.
Meanwhile the Taliban has begun hunting through crowds at the airport and going door-to-door elsewhere in the country, looking for those who collaborated with US or NATO forces - torturing and executing those they find.
General Haji Mullah Achakzai, police chief of Badghis Province near Herat, was gunned down in cold blood by Taliban fighters in disturbing footage posted online - while the relative of a German journalist was also shot to death by Islamist gunmen who were unable to find the reporter himself.
Nine ethnic Hazara men were also killed, Amnesty said, with six shot and three tortured to death - with one strangled to death using a scarf and one sliced to pieces with muscles stripped from his body.
In other developments:
- Joe Biden said he can't 'recall' if he was warned to maintain a troop presence in Afghanistan;
- The US President insisted 'no one is being killed' during the chaos at the Kabul airport;
- Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov confirmed an armed resistance to the Taliban, which includes SAS-trained forces, in Afghanistan is forming in the Panjshir Valley;
- Afghanistan's biggest female pop star has escaped on a US flight out of Kabul as fears grow for women in the country after the Taliban's vow to impose Sharia;
- Taliban militants are intensifying their hunt for people who worked with UK, US and Nato forces in Afghanistan, according to a confidential report to the UN;
- The British Foreign Office issued a slew of action shots of Dominic Raab hard at work as he faced fury for failing to make a crucial phone call about Afghanistan while he was on holiday;
- Women have led anti-Taliban protesters in Afghanistan today as they waved national flags in defiance of the Islamists to mark their country's independence day.
A shocking image shows a near-empty evacuation flight taking the wife of an ex-Royal Marine commando out of Kabul as the Taliban block thousands of Afghans from entering the capital's airport. Paul 'Pen' Farthing said on Twitter: 'Kaisa is on her way home! BUT this aircraft is empty… scandalous as thousands wait outside #Kabul airport being crushed as they cannot get in. Sadly people will be left behind when this mission is over as we CANNOT get it right'
A baby is handed over to the American army over the perimeter wall of the airport for it to be evacuated, in Kabul
Afghan people gather along a road as they wait to be evacuated from Kabul airport on Friday
Afghan people within the airport perimeter wait to board evacuation flights out of the country on Friday morning
Afghan citizens with US visas sit inside a military evacuation plane as it leaves Kabul on Thursday, amid criticism that planes are not being fully loaded
A woman holds up her British passport as she waits to be evacuated from Kabul airport after Afghanistan fell to the Taliban
British passport holders wave their documents at Kabul airport as people say they have been unable to get into the terminal due to thousands-strong crowds crammed up to the gates
Satellite images have revealed the extent of the crisis at Kabul airport, with cars crammed up against the southern civilian entrance and northern military entrance that can be seen from satellites
Taliban fighters have now encircled the airport in Kabul and are deciding who gets to come in and who has to stay out. Checkpoints have been set up on both the civilian south side of the airport and the military north side, with gunshots fired in both locations to keep crowds backTaliban fighters have also been seen shooting over the heads of crowds at Kabul airport while striking people with rifles, as those on the ground reported beatings and whippings being dished out seemingly at random. Crowds have also gathered at the entrance to the military wing of the airport, which is guarded by US and British troops who have been firing into the air to disperse the crowds.
Westerners face a race against time to get out of Kabul, with control of the airport resting on the up to 60,000 troops. Joe Biden has said they will stay until all US citizens are evacuated, but there are suspicions among British troops that they could leave abruptly - leaving the 600 British unable to keep operating to evacuate UK nationals and interpreters.
UK defence secretary Ben Wallace told The Times that British nationals and visa holders are being allowed through a Taliban 'ring of steel' around the airport, but that he is aware that not everyone is able to get through crowds at the airport or make it to Kabul from elsewhere in the country.
'There are people emailing or telling us that they can't make it,' he admitted. 'We encourage them to see what they can do to help... It's very important that the Foreign Office reach out to those people.'
Meanwhile Mr Farthing told MailOnline that British troops had fired warning shots over the heads of a mother who was clutching a small baby at the airport.
He said: 'There were a number of shots fired overhead and people started rushing around in panic. I don't know whether it was live rounds but even if it wasn't the fear factor is the same. It does nothing to resolve the matter and makes an already tense situation much worse.'
While US and UK troops have said that firing warning shots is a last resort, the Taliban are causing pandemonium and were filmed today shooting from the hip just yards away from women and children, and whacking people with the butts of their rifles.
Such is the desperation among crowds at the airport that women have resorted to passing babies over barbed wire to soldiers in a vain attempt to get them out of the country.
British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab's job was hanging by a thread last night as it emerged the crucial phone call that was delegated to a junior minister never took place.
Tory MPs yesterday joined a ferocious backlash against Mr Raab over his failure to intervene while on holiday to help airlift translators out of Afghanistan. The Mail revealed yesterday that the Foreign Secretary had been advised by officials to interrupt his luxury trip to Crete on Friday to urgently contact his Afghan counterpart.
Mr Raab, however, failed to make the call and it was 'delegated' to the duty Foreign Office minister Lord Goldsmith. It was thought the telephone conversation had then taken place the following day.
But in an explosive development last night it emerged the call had never actually taken place. The Foreign Office admitted that as the Afghan regime collapsed, it had proved impossible to rearrange.
The revelation will intensify the pressure on Mr Raab, who yesterday faced a clamour to consider his position and resign.
Yesterday, he insisted he would not step down as he broke cover to hold a virtual meeting of G7 leaders. The Foreign Office released pictures of the Foreign Secretary at work and on the phone and said he was working to provide humanitarian assistance and support in Afghanistan.
Afghans who risked their lives by working as translators alongside British soldiers accused the Foreign Secretary of a 'betrayal' and warned that his failure to get urgent assistance could cost lives.
Angry Conservative MPs accused Mr Raab for being 'asleep at the wheel' and of lacking commitment to the job, with one Tory peer saying he should reflect on his future. Opposition parties meanwhile, said Mr Raab was guilty of a 'dereliction of duty' and called for him to be sacked.
Afghan translator Rafi Hottak, who was injured while alongside soldiers in Helmand, was among those to tell of his fury last night, saying: 'It is a betrayal.
And one angry Tory MP said: 'Raab was asleep at the wheel. Backbench MPs are absolutely livid about his 'not my problem guv' attitude, as if it was not his responsibility. It has really riled up colleagues. The issue is not that he was on holiday, it is that he seemed to be unaware of what was happening.'
Last night, a leaked United Nations report warned the Taliban were now plotting murderous revenge against those Afghans who had worked with the West. The head of the group providing intelligence to the UN warned the Taliban were carrying out a highly-organised door-to-door hunt for people on their wanted list.
Female demonstrators took to the streets of Kabul waving the black, red and green flag which has become a symbol of defiance to the country's jihadist rulers.
They were joined by thousands across the country who celebrated the 1919 handover of power from the British by rejecting their new overlords. It comes just a day after three were shot dead for flying the flag during protests.
The Taliban responded with beatings and gunfire while tearing down flags, despite their pledge to be a 'reformed' and 'moderate' version of the brutal outfit which controlled Afghanistan in the 1990s.
Islamists fighters have also been celebrating independence day in their own fashion - by flying their black and white flag and claiming victory over American forces.
The chaos outside the airport appears to be growing by the day and is causing dangerous stampedes in which several people have already been killed this week, including a 14-year-old girl.
Former British Marine, Mr Farthing, told MailOnline: 'Two expats - one British and one Norwegian - have already been forced to turn back this morning because they can't get through.
'And last night a UN convoy carrying various foreign nationals, who had been working in Afghanistan for NGOs, had to turn round because of the sheer volume of people on the street.'
An Afghan-Australian trying to leave the country also told ABC it is 'not possible' to get to the airport because there is 'lots of firing' and 'too many people' while Max Sangeen, a Canadian interpreter, said his wife and children - including a 20-day-old baby - are trapped in Kabul despite having the correct documents.
But it is not clear what western troops can do to help. There are around 6,000 American and 900 British soldiers at the airport - alongside smaller numbers of Turks and Australians - but their jurisdiction only extends up to the perimeter wall. Beyond that, the Taliban is in charge.
The huge US contingent keeping the airport secured piles pressure on Britain to get its citizens out quickly, with the smaller UK force unlikely to be able the hold the site if the Americans leave.
Mr Wallace said Taliban guards are allowing people with travel documents through checkpoints and British flights are not leaving the country empty - insisting that 'not a single seat is wasted'. He revealed 120 people were evacuated this morning, with 138 due to follow later.
There were eight RAF transport planes - made up of A400 Atlas, C-130 Hercules and C-17 Globemasters - scheduled to leave Kabul today. But with military transports able to carry up to 150, it means there will have been empty seats on the flights despite Mr Wallace's claims.
The passengers were made up of British citizens, media and human rights staff and Afghans who had worked for the British. The Ministry of Defence confirmed there were six British flights out of Kabul on Wednesday - despite Mr Wallace saying there were seven to 10 daily - meaning a maximum of 900 passengers were on board and free from the Taliban.
Meanwhile Joe Biden said when pressed Wednesday US troops were 'going to stay' in Afghanistan until they get American citizens out, even if it means running through an August 31 deadline order. The US President made the statement despite his own order soldiers will leave by the date, acknowledging the effort could run over if its citizens are still stuck in Afghanistan amid security and bureaucratic hurdles.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said he expects 18 US flights to take off today, though it is not clear how many people will be able to board each plane.
But Farthing slammed the comments as naive, saying: 'Nobody can actually reach [the processing centre] because of the crowds and the chaos surrounding it.
'It's a lottery whether you get picked to get through the security. At the moment people who have seats booked on flights out of the airport are being turned back while others who storm fencing or are picked completely at random are getting on planes.
'I'm livid at the Government's mishandling of this, they need to take a moment, get their heads together, and work out a way with the Americans to help fly out ex-pats and those who need safety - like those who work for me - because otherwise we are looking at the worst humanitarian disaster in Afghanistan for a generation.'
The TRUE face of the Taliban: Villagers tortured to death with muscles sliced off + Police chief machine-gunned + Journalist's family killed
Since retaking Afghanistan with alarming speed, the Taliban have gone on a charm offensive.
Insisting they're a new organisation from the despotic jihadists of 20 years ago, who brutally oppressed women and allied themselves with Al Qaeda terrorists, this new 'Taliban 2.0', the world was assured, would now respect freedom, equality and basic humanity.
But those lies have now been exposed, and Afghanistan's new rulers have proven beyond what little doubt there was that they are just as bloodthirsty and tyrannical as their equivalents from two decades ago.
Human rights group Amnesty International revealed that Taliban fighters massacred nine ethnic Hazara men after taking control of the country's Ghazni province last month, with eyewitnesses giving harrowing accounts of the killings.
Six men were shot and three were tortured to death, including one man who was strangled with his own scarf and had his arm muscles sliced off during the atrocity, which took place between 4-6 July in the village of Mundarakht, Malistan district, the group revealed.Despite the organisation's claims it would not seek vengeance on those who fought their tyranny, one regional police chief who stood against them was executed in cold blood by the jihadist group, reports say.
Shocking video footage being circulated on the internet shows the kneeling handcuffed and blindfolded figure of General Haji Mullah Achakzai, chief of Badghis Province near Herat, being gunned down in a hail of bullets.
The grey-haired commander was reported to have been arrested by the Taliban after they seized the area, near the Turkmenistan border, in their lightning advance late last week.
The disturbing clip was re-tweeted by former BBC Persia journalist Nasrin Nawa after it emerged on the feed of an apparent resistance group to the Taliban called @PanjshirProvince.
Gen. Achakzai, in his early 60s, was an avowed enemy of the Taliban and known as a seasoned fighter in the long-running conflict between the group and the forces of the Afghan civil government, which fell at the weekend.
According to reports, the governor and police chief of Laghman Province near Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan have also been detained, with their fate to be decided by the Taliban high command.
The brutal execution follows numerous reports of Taliban patrols going door-to-door in some areas and taking men of fighting age into detention.
And while Taliban militants searched for a journalist for German broadcaster Deutsche Welle, one of the reporter's family members was shot dead, according to local reports .
Taliban fighters pose for photograph in Wazir Akbar Khan in the city of Kabul, Afghanistan, Wednesday, August 18
Now the jihadis are intensifying their hunt for those who dared to work with UK, US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, a confidential report to the UN reveals. Jihadists are going door-to-door to threaten relatives of civil servants, interpreters and other consular staff, while other militants are even stopping people outside Kabul airport.
Despite the Taliban's claims of an 'amnesty', terrifying video shows fighters spraying assault rifle bullets just yards away from women and children gathered at the airport's perimeter. The UN dossier leaked to The New York Times says the Taliban are 'arresting and/or threatening to kill or arrest family members of target individuals unless they surrender themselves to the Taliban.'
It was filed to the UN by the Norwegian Center for Global Analyses, a group which provides intelligence on global conflicts.
The disturbing clip of the police chief's slaying was re-tweeted by former BBC Persia journalist Nasrin Nawa after it emerged on the feed of an apparent resistance group to the Taliban called @PanjshirProvince.
After a content warning, Ms Nawa added: 'Haji Mullah, Police chief of Badghis province executed by #Taliban. This is their public amnesty!'
The Taliban had promised that there would be no acts of vengeance against former enemies following their takeover of Afghanistan on Saturday.
Gen. Achakzai, in his early 60s, was an avowed enemy of the Taliban and known as a seasoned fighter in the long-running conflict between the group and the forces of the Afghan civil government, which fell at the weekend.
According to reports, the governor and police chief of Laghman Province near Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan have also been detained, with their fate to be decided by the Taliban high command.
The brutal execution follows numerous reports of Taliban patrols going door-to-door in some areas and taking men of fighting age into detention.
Senior Afghan officials told The Telegraph they have been forced into 'deep hiding' to avoid the marauding fighters who they suspect have gained access to government employee databases.
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