UK and US to deploy troops to Afghanistan to help evacuate their citizens – as Taliban take Kandahar
The UK is sending military personnel to help evacuate Britons from Afghanistan as the security situation in the country rapidly deteriorates.
The move was authorised by the defence secretary on Thursday morning.
The US has also announced that it is deploying some 3,000 additional troops to help the departure of its embassy staff. The American embassy will remain open, although personnel will be reduced to a “core diplomatic presence”.
Since the western troops left Afghanistan, the Taliban has been slowly making gains and is nearing the capital, Kabul
The Taliban have captured Herat – Afghanistan’s third-largest city, and US intelligence has warned Kabul could fall within 90 days.
The capture of Herat marks the biggest prize yet for the Taliban, which has now taken 11 of Afghanistan’s provincial capitals.
In a hastily arranged briefing with journalists, Ben Wallace said 600 troops will be sent to Kabul on a “short-term basis” in response to the increasing violence across the country. They are expected to arrive in the coming days.
“I have authorised the deployment of additional military personnel to support the diplomatic presence in Kabul, assist British nationals to leave the country and support the relocation of former Afghan staff who risked their lives serving alongside us,” said Mr Wallace.
The Taliban’s advance has meant the group has taken control of Ghazni, in the east
As of 10 August, the government had lost control of the majority of regions, as the Taliban looks to advance on Kabul, the capital
The Taliban has made significant gains in Afghanistan
“The security of British nationals, British military personnel and former Afghan staff is our first priority. We must do everything we can to ensure their safety.”
The Ministry of Defence has characterised the move as part of the ongoing withdrawal of NATO forces, but in reality it is an unplanned emergency response to the rapidly deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan as the Taliban rampage across the country.
The British soldiers will also assist with the acceleration of the Afghan Relocation and Assistance Policy.
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The Taliban have posted videos of its soldiers in cities such as Kandahar, Herat and Ghazni as they continue to retake territory.
“This will help to make sure interpreters and other Afghan staff who risked their lives working alongside UK forces in Afghanistan can relocate to the UK as soon as possible,” the Ministry of Defence said in a statement.
The number of staff working at the British Embassy in Kabul has also been significantly reduced to a “core group”, the government has announced – the remaining staff will focus on consular help to anyone wanting to leave the country.
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The British ambassador to Afghanistan, Sir Laurie Bristow, will remain in Kabul but will relocate to a more secure location.
World
Seeing Iranian missile fuel tank up close makes claims that attack on Israel was symbolic seem absurd
When the first pictures of downed Iranian rockets emerged on Sunday morning, they didn’t look real.
Even seasoned military spokesman Peter Lerner was fooled. “I thought it was fake news,” he told Sky News.
The huge black tubes littering the Dead Sea and other parts of Israel seemed too colossal to be genuine.
We had seen them on the back of trucks on parade in Tehran but not fired in anger before.
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Israeli military spokesperson Daniel Hagari stands next to one of the Iranian ballistic missiles Israel intercepted. Pic: AP
In a military base near the coast, we were shown the fuel tank for an Emad or ‘Pillar of Strength’ missile intercepted as it entered Israeli airspace that night.
It is 11 metres long, but with a warhead the size of a small car, it would have been even bigger at launch.
It has a range of 1,000 miles, a payload of half a tonne of explosives, is accurate to 10 metres and on Saturday was fired by the dozen at Israel.
Standing next to it, suddenly the claims that Iran‘s attack was in any way a token effort or symbolic seem absurd.
If any one of those ballistic missiles had reached an Israeli population centre it would have been devastating.
Showing the rocket to journalists, Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said the attack would not go unpunished.
He said: “Firing 110 ballistic missiles, directly to Israel, will not get off scot-free. We will respond. In our time. In our place. The way that we will choose.”
There is reportedly intense debate in the Israeli government about how that will happen.
The government is under pressure to strike back hard and quickly, to exact a high price that will deter Iran from ever aiming such missiles at Israel again.
But others fear that could jeopardise the coalition of allies and neighbours which helped protect Israel that night.
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Iran’s attack on Israel and what happened next
David Horovitz, editor of the Times of Israel and one of its most seasoned observers of the country’s international relations, told Sky News: “There’s concern that if you hit back, you risk shattering that coalition, you potentially prompt a further Iranian response and therefore a regional war, even potentially a world war.”
There is an opportunity. A chance to build on that coalition to create real international pressure on Iran not least to stop its alleged nuclear weapons programme.
But there is jeopardy too – with a huge amount at stake.
Read more:
Are we heading for World War Three?
Israel ‘knows what our second retaliation would be’ – Iran
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Some reports claim Israel’s retaliation will stop short of an all-out attack on targets inside Iran, but that is by no means certain.
The coming hours could decide if the Middle East is plunged into a widening war or not.
World
Israel’s tough words following Iranian attack are ‘a threat, not an action’, Iran’s UN ambassador says
Iran’s ambassador to the UN has told Sky News that Israel’s promise of a significant response to Saturday’s attack is “a threat, not an action”.
Amir Saeid Iravani was speaking exclusively to Sky’s James Matthews after an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council in New York on Sunday.
The day before, his country launched more than 300 drones and missiles into Israel in response to a strike on an Iranian consular building in Syria earlier this month which killed two Iranian generals. That strike has been widely blamed on Israel.
Follow live updates after Iran’s attack on Israel
Israel’s war cabinet met on Sunday to discuss possible retaliation against Iran, with the country’s broadcaster Channel 12 quoting an unnamed official as vowing a “significant response”.
Mr Iravani said Israel “would know what our second retaliation would be… they understand the next one will be most decisive”.
But he said he believed a conclusion had been reached, adding: “I think there should be no military response from Israel.”
Iran’s UN ambassador, Amir Saeid Iravani. Pic: AP
The weekend brought long-simmering tensions between the two countries to boiling point, sparking fears that the conflict could spread more widely across the Middle East region.
When asked if his country’s actions had risked escalation towards a wider war, Iranian ambassador Mr Iravani said: “It was our legitimate right to respond because they started aggression against our diplomatic premises.”
Israel managed to repel most of Iran’s weekend attack, with the help of its Iron Dome defence system and forces from the US, UK, Jordan and France.
Analysis:
Will Israel let an attack by Iran go unpunished? Probably not
All-out war, or not, in the Middle East?
Ahead of Israel’s war cabinet meeting, centrist minister and war cabinet member Benny Gantz said: “We will build a regional coalition and exact the price from Iran in the fashion and timing that is right for us.”
Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, who, like Mr Gantz, has decision-making powers in the war cabinet, also spoke of forming an alliance “against this grave threat by Iran, which is threatening to mount nuclear explosives on these missiles, which could be an extremely grave threat”.
Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons.
Read more:
Iran attack was ‘declaration of war’, Israeli president says
How Biden watched the Iranian attack – and what he told Netanyahu
Late on Sunday, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres joined G7 leaders and Arab nations in calling for calm, telling the UN Security Council: “The Middle East is on the brink.
“The people of the region are confronting a real danger of a devastating full-scale conflict – now is the time to refuse and de-escalate.”
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Deputy US Ambassador to the UN Robert Wood threatened additional measures at the global body to hold Iran accountable, warning: “If Iran or its proxies take actions against the United States or further action against Israel, Iran will be held responsible.”
The US has already said that, while it does not seek to escalate the conflict, it will continue to defend Israel.
It is “about time” the world faced the “empire of evil in Tehran”, Israel’s president has told Sky News.
World leaders also need to “make it clear” to the Iranian regime that its behaviour is “unacceptable”, Isaac Herzog added.
He described Iran’s launch of more than 300 drones and missiles towards Israel on Saturday as “just another example of how they have operated for years and years”.
Follow live updates after Iran’s attack on Israel
Tehran has been “spreading havoc, terror and instability all over the world, and especially in our region”, he said.
Iran has proxies all over the Middle East and terror cells all around the world, Mr Herzog went on.
“We were attacked last night from four corners of the Middle East with proxies shooting at us, firing missiles and ballistic missiles, drones and cruise missiles,” he said.
“This is like a real war. I mean, this is a declaration of war,” he said, before adding that Israel would exercise restraint.
Asked by Sky’s Middle East correspondent, Alistair Bunkall, whether he agreed with the comments of Western allies who are calling for calm, Mr Herzog said: “The last thing that Israel is seeking in this region since its creation is to go to war – we are seeking peace.”
Rishi Sunak confirmed the RAF shot down “a number” of Iranian attack drones.
The UK prime minister said “additional planes” were sent to the region as part of operations already under way in Iraq and Syria.
Had Iran’s attack on Israel been successful, the “fallout for regional stability would be hard to overstate”, Mr Sunak added.
“This was a dangerous and unnecessary escalation which I have condemned in the strongest terms,” he said.
US planes reportedly downed Iranian drones over northern Syria too.
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Will Israel respond to Iran’s attacks?
Meanwhile, the Israel Defence Forces is “poised and prepared for further aggression”, IDF spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner told Sky News.
He also called the defence of Israel a “unity of reasonable players against the diabolical plan of Iran”.
Asked if Israel would respond, he said: “It’s a very good question. We are looking towards the government today, the government will convene later today and they will make their decisions and instruct the military accordingly.”
Iran‘s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has said it was responding to an “attack on the consular section of the Iranian embassy in Damascus” on 1 April.
Two generals and seven members of the IRGC were killed in the strike, which Tehran blamed on Israel. Israel has not publicly commented.
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