KABUL: The final UK troops, diplomats and officials have left Kabul, Downing Street has confirmed.
The departure of the RAF flight brings to an end the UK’s 20-year military involvement in Afghanistan, BBC reports.
More than 15,000 people have been evacuated by the UK since 14 August, it said.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the moment was a chance to reflect on the achievements of recent weeks – and the last two decades, such as girls’ education and weakening al-Qaeda, according to the report.
In a letter to the armed forces community, PM Johnson acknowledged the fall of Kabul to the Taliban will have been hard for them to watch.
He added it would be “an especially difficult time for the friends and loved ones of the 457 service personnel who laid down their lives” during the war.
The prime minister said the UK’s involvement in Afghanistan “kept al-Qaeda from our door for two decades and we are all safer as a result”.
Around 5,000 British nationals and their families were airlifted, alongside more than 8,000 Afghan former UK staff and their families and those considered at risk from the Taliban.
Downing Street said the evacuation effort saw the Royal Air Force record its single biggest capacity flight ever when 436 people were carried on a C-17 aircraft.
(BBC)
Comment