Image source, Reuters

UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab will be grilled by the Foreign Affairs Committee at 14:00 BST on Wednesday over his handling of the UK's withdrawal from Afghanistan.

The speed of the Taliban's advance to Kabul took many countries by surprise.

Raab has acknowledged that the UK's assessment was "clearly wrong" but pointed out that other countries also failed to predict the pace at which the Afghan government would collapse.

He is likely to be questioned on why the UK wasn't better prepared for the pullout despite years of warning, and whether the UK could have maintained a presence for longer.

He will also be asked about what needs to be done to evacuate Afghans still stuck in the country.

Last week, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said there were around 800 to 1,100 Afghans eligible to come to the UK under the Arap scheme who would not be able to make it out of the country.

Raab has dismissed claims from MPs that there could be as many as 7,000 Arap-eligible applicants left behind. The foreign secretary can expect MPs to push him on the most recent figures.

MPs may also want to know how the UK will realistically be able to prevent new security threats emerging in the region now UK forces have left.

Read more: The questions facing Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab

Large crowds were jostling outside the banks in Kabul and queues formed near foreign embassies on Thursday, a day after the last US troops left Afghanistan.

But the BBC's Lyse Doucet says that for the majority of Afghanistan's 40 million people, life feels no different from recent days, despite the end of the 20-year foreign military presence.

Image source, Reuters

The UK is in talks with the Taliban to secure safe passage out of Afghanistan for a number of British nationals and Afghans who remain there.

The talks, involving UK officials and "senior" Taliban members, are taking place in Doha, Qatar, No 10 said.

It comes after a Taliban pledge to allow further departures.

Read our full story here

President Joe Biden on Tuesday defended his decision to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan - a move which opened the way for Taliban militants to return to power.

Staying longer was not an option, Biden said in an address to the nation, a day after the end of a 20-year US presence in Afghanistan.

He praised troops for organising an airlift of more than 120,000 people wishing to flee the Taliban regime.

The Islamist militants have been celebrating their victory.

Image source, Reuters

We're resuming our live coverage of the Afghanistan crisis.

Just to recap - here are the main developments in the past 24 hours:

• US President Joe Biden defends withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, calling it a choice between "leaving or escalating"
• The evacuation efforts was an "extraordinary success", he says
• Some 123,000 people were airlifted by the US and its allies before the 31 August deadline, Washington says
• Taliban fighters have been seen posing in abandoned US aircraft at Kabul airport after the final US flight left
• The UK is in talks with the Taliban to secure safe passage for a number of British nationals and Afghans who remain there

Stay with us - we'll be bringing you all the latest information on this fast-developing story, eyewitnesses' accounts, as well as analysis by BBC correspondents.

We're pausing today's coverage on Afghanistan but first a reminder of the headlines:

• The US has officially withdrawn from Afghanistan, with the last American plane departing just before midnight on Tuesday
• Speaking on Tuesday, US President Joe Biden defended the decision to withdraw adding that he believed that staying wasn't an option
• Addressing the nation, he said that the US strategy had to change and there was no need to have boots on the ground to fight terror
• Biden also issued a warning to the Islamic State group affiliate which attacked crowds at Kabul airport. "ISIS-K we are not done with you yet," he said
• However, foreign citizens remain in the country, including hundreds of British nationals and around 100 to 250 Americans, according to officials
• The Taliban has celebrated the withdrawal. Speaking at Kabul airport, one Taliban leader claimed that "people are happy" that the militants have "brought peace" to Afghanistan
• But UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has warned of a looming "humanitarian catastrophe" in the country

You can keep up with the latest news on Afghanistan in our main story here

Image source, Reuters

Frank Gardner
BBC Security Correspondent

Image source, Getty Images

The Taliban takeover of nearly the whole of Afghanistan means that the West - and specifically the CIA, MI6 and other intelligence agencies - no longer has a trusted, in-country security service or Afghan special forces to work with.

For the nearly 20 years that Nato and other multinational forces have been in Afghanistan, the intelligence provided by the country's National Directorate of Security has been vital in disclosing the covert activities of al-Qaeda, ISIS-K (the Afghan affiliate of Islamic State group) and other jihadist militant groups.

Afghan, US, British and other special forces were then able to swoop in, often by helicopter in the dead of night, and close down those bases before they could successfully launch any international attacks.

Hence the claim that for 20 years there has not been a single transnational attack launched from Afghanistan while Western forces were there.

So what now? What's left?

The loss of both its Afghan bases and an established network of human informants has forced the West - primarily the US and UK - to now rely on two other methods: cyber interception of messages, and "over-the-horizon" drone strikes.

Read more here.

Tara McKelvey
BBC News, Washington

Image source, EPA

The president stood in a doorway of the state dining room at the White House for an important moment, the one that ended the US war in Afghanistan.

Several of his staffers stood on the side of the room, listening carefully.

The president works with a group of individuals on his speeches, and on this day one of his senior aides held a black folder, and watched him carefully. The aide’s hands were clasped tightly together, fingertips turning white.

It was the most important speech that Biden has given since his election, and could become the one that defines his presidency, and his legacy.

The senior aide was, understandably, tense. Yet in this moment, at the end of the war, the words that the president used were less important than what he has done: he brought the troops home and has overseen what many see as a disastrous withdrawal of the forces in Afghanistan.

As soon as the president finished his remarks, the senior aide ducked out of the room, and disappeared behind a red screen in an adjacent room.

The words had been said, and the aide’s job was done here.

Now, as the aide knew, it was up to historians to decide whether the words had been the right ones, and whether the president had chosen the correct course

The UK government has confirmed that a government representative has met senior Taliban leaders in Doha to discuss safe passage out of Afghanistan for British nationals and Afghans who've worked with the UK.

A Downing Street spokesperson said: “The Prime Minister’s Special Representative for Afghan Transition, Simon Gass, has travelled to Doha and is meeting with senior Taliban representatives to underline the importance of safe passage out of Afghanistan for British nationals, and those Afghans who have worked with us over the past twenty years.”

Gary O'Donoghue
Washington Correspondent

The bigger message here was we can't do this again, we can't keep doing this kind of thing again.

If we perceive a threat in another country we have to deal with it but we can't go and fight other people's insurgent wars and we can't go and do what he called nation building again.

That is a new Biden-ism if you like. It's something we have known he's thought for a long time... and now, here, we have him setting out what approaches, I think, a doctrine.

Image source, White House

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki been explaining to reporters what President Biden meant when he said the US had leverage over the Taliban.

“We have enormous leverage over the Taliban, including access to the global marketplace. That is not a small piece of leverage,” she said.

Ms Psaki also pointed to the UN Security Council resolution which makes clear the Taliban is expected to allow safe travel out of the country to those who wish, and said the US was working with Turkey and others to ensure Kabul’s airport can reopen for civilian use as well as for humanitarian purposes.

She said the US was establishing a diplomatic office in the Qatar capital, Doha, from which they can help Americans in Afghanistan.

President Joe Biden has defended his much-criticised decision to pull out US troops from Afghanistan - an event that led to the unexpected collapse of the Afghan government and the return of Taliban militants in charge of the country.

Since 15 August, when the capital, Kabul, fell - a frantic US-led military operation was launched to evacuate more than 120,000 people - Western nationals and local Afghans who'd been working for them. So what did Biden say about this decision?

• President Biden said he accepted responsibility for the decision to withdraw, adding that he believed that staying longer wasn’t an option
• Even though Afghan security forces collapsed faster than expected, the US was prepared for that scenario, too, Biden said
• On the evacuation, he said "only the US had the capacity and the will and ability" to do it
• The president promised to evacuate Americans left in the country "if they so choose". And to local Afghans who wish to leave, he said, "we are far from done"
• Amid criticism that evacuations should have started earlier, Biden said there would still would have been “a rush to the airport”
• Even though there were threats to the US from Islamist militants, the US president said the US strategy had to change - there was no need to have troops on the ground to fight terror
• And referring to the Islamic State affiliate which attacked crowds at Kabul airport - killing more than 170 people, 13 of them US servicemen - Biden warned: "ISIS-K we are not done with you yet."

Anthony Zurcher
BBC North America reporter

Image source, Reuters

On Tuesday afternoon, Joe Biden tried to “turn the page” from a month of chaos and death in Afghanistan and, more broadly, from 20 years of ultimately futile US attempts at occupation and nation-building.

He spoke of the “extraordinary success” of the US evacuation mission over the past few weeks, with more than a hundred thousand Americans and Afghans airlifted out under extreme duress.

At times he seemed defensive, noting that Americans were warned 19 times to exit Afghanistan before the August US military withdrawal. He accused Afghan leaders, allies on whom the US had depended, of “corruption and malfeasance”. And he blamed the Trump administration for negotiating what he characterised as an inadequate withdrawal agreement with the Taliban.

He spent less time talking about the failures – of the 13 US soldiers who lost their lives last week and the hundreds of civilian casualties. Instead, he spoke of the cost of the so-called “forever war” – of thousands of US military casualties, tens of thousands of injuries and trillions of dollars spent in an effort that began and ended with Taliban in control.

He said the US had no vital interest in Afghanistan, and that the mission there – to eradicate Al-Qaeda and prevent future terror attacks – was accomplished a decade ago.

“It was time to end this war,” he said. He then tried to reframe US foreign policy as depending less on military deployments and more on diplomacy and international cooperation to face adversaries like China and Russia.

Public opinion polls show Americans still support the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, although many are unhappy with how Biden oversaw the exit. White House officials say they hope, as time passes, that the nation will be grateful for what the president accomplished and forget the details of how it ended.

Biden sought to answer those who questioned why things had to change.

He said "everything had changed" after "my predecessor made a deal with a Taliban".

For those wanting a "third decade of war", he said it was key to look at what the "vital national interest" was.

And, what is in the national interest is to make sure Afghanistan can never be used again to launch an attack on the US, he says.

The US succeeded in what it set out to do over a decade ago, following the September 11 attacks, he says. It is a "new world" and the terror threat is now from many other places across the globe.

His priority is to defend and protect America - from the threats not of 2001 but of 2021, he says.

"To those who wish America harm, the US will never rest," says Biden.

"We will not forgive, forget, we will hunt you down to the ends of the earth and you will pay the ultimate price".

He says the US will continue to support Afghans through diplomacy and aid. He adds that America will speak out for the rights of Afghan people including women and girls.

"I have been clear that human rights will be at the centre of foreign policy", he says.

“The war in Afghanistan is now over.”

Image source, Reuters

"We delivered justice to Bin Laden over a decade ago. Al-Qaeda was decimated," says Biden.

He says that "this is a new world" and there are threats from al-Shabab, al-Qaeda affiliates and the Islamic State group.

"I do not believe the safety and security of America is enhanced by deploying thousands of troops and spending billions in Afghanistan," he says.

He says the US strategy has to change and doesn't need to have troops on the ground to fight terror.

"We struck ISIS-K remotely days after they murdered 13 of our service members and dozens of innocent Afghans.

"ISIS-K we are not done with you yet," he adds.

Image source, Getty Images

The US has "leverage" to make sure commitments made by the Taliban are met, says Biden.

He goes on to say the 31 August withdrawal was not an "arbitrary deadline" but was to save lives.

If the US stayed, despite the previous administration promising to leave, then "all bets were off", he said.

The choice he faced was between leaving, or the situation escalating.

He was not going to "extend this forever war" - and was not going to continue with a forever exit.

President Biden said he accepts responsibility for the decision to withdraw from Afghanistan, adding that he believes that staying longer wasn’t an option.

“Some say we should have started the mass evacuation sooner and couldn’t have this been done in a more orderly manner,” he said. “I respectfully disagree.”

Biden said that he believes that even if evacuations had begun in June or July, there still “would have been a rush to the airport”.

“It still would have been a very difficult and dangerous mission,” he said, adding that no evacuation from the end of the war could have been done without the same “complexities and challenges.”

Biden says the US was ready when the Afghanistan government "did not hold on as long as anyone expected".

He says the evacuation mission was designed under "severe stress and attack".

Since March, Americans in Afghanistan had been given "multiple warnings" and a chance to leave the country.

After starting the evacuation, the US identified about 5,000 US citizens who now wanted to leave. These were helped to leave, as well as those Afghans who had helped the US.

About 100-200 Americans remain - most of whom have dual nationality. The "bottom line" is the 90% of Americans who wanted to leave were able to, he says.

The US remains committed to getting them out if they want to come out, he adds.

President Biden has said the US will help evacuate Americans left "if they so choose".

Turning to the Afghans airlifted out he says "no country has done more to airlift residents of another country. We are far from done".

Biden says he disagrees with claims that the evacuations should have started earlier. He claims that there still would be queues outside the airport.