US, NEW YORK (ORDO NEWS) — The last plane with British troops remaining at Kabul airport took off from Afghanistan. The corresponding message was posted on Saturday evening by the United Kingdom Department of Defense on its Twitter.
“The last plane with British troops on board left Kabul,” the UK Defense Department said in a statement. “Thank you to everyone who bravely served, working under tremendous pressure and in dire conditions to safely evacuate the most vulnerable civilians.”
Earlier, British Ambassador to Afghanistan Laurie Bristow said that since August 13, London has evacuated about 15 thousand civilians from Kabul, including Afghans who helped Western forces during a 20-year military operation, and 1,000 members of the Royal Armed Forces.
On Friday, British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace admitted that the authorities will not be able to take out of the country everyone they would like. According to him, between 800 and 1.1 thousand Afghans who helped the British and 100-150 British nationals will remain in Afghanistan. Some of them, according to Wallace, “remain of their own free will.”
Western leaders have previously confirmed that they plan to fully complete the operation to evacuate their citizens from Kabul by August 31. At the same time, as stated in a joint statement by the leaders of the G7 states, the militants of the radical Taliban movement, which established control over Kabul on August 15, should provide an opportunity to leave the country for all Afghans who do not want to live under the rule of the Taliban, and after August 31, guaranteeing full acceptance of commercial flights at the capital’s airport.
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