About 3000 US troops are to be sent to Afghanistan to assist British nationals to leave, the government has announced.
It comes as the Taliban seized the country’s second-largest city, Kandahar, as well as the cities of Ghazni and Herat.
Officials said the city fell on Thursday night but government officials made it to the airport before fleeing to safety.
The rapidly deteriorating security situation has seen the United States announces that it will send in 3,000 troops to help evacuate personnel from the US Embassy in Kabul.
Military personnel will provide protection and help relocate UK nationals, Afghan staff and interpreters.
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Hundreds of Marines are already on the ground of the embassy complex in Kabul and are responsible for evacuating the embassy, which has a staff of 4.000 – including 1.400 Americans.
Great Britain has said it will also send 600 troops into the country to help support British nationals as they leave.
Although Kabul itself is not under any imminent threat, the Taliban now control two-thirds of the country.
US military officials have told the White House that they believe Kabul could be overrun by the Taliban in as little as 30 to 90 days, officials told The Washington Post.
That is far quicker than an initial US projection that it could take between six and 12 months for that to occur.
The Taliban took Kandahar in the 1990s after claiming the country as an Islamic state but were forced out when US troops invaded the country in 2001.
The city’s airport was the main base for US and NATO troops, before being handed back to the Afghanistan government in May.
Earlier this week Joe Biden said he did not regret his administration’s decision to pull out of Afghanistan and end the 20-year campaign there, a move which will be completed by 31 August.
“I do not regret my decision. We spent over a trillion dollars, over 20 years. We trained and equipped with modern equipment over 300,000 Afghan forces … they’ve got to fight for themselves,” he said.
(Independent)
