The Taliban has called on women who work for the health ministry to return to their jobs.

Spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said on Twitter that female staff should "attend their regularly duties" both in Kabul and other provinces.

He made no mention of other women employees. All had previously been told to stay at home for their safety.

Afghan women have expressed fear for their future following the Taliban take over of the country.

Zabihullah Mujahid also issued a directive telling the people of Kabul to hand in "weapons, ammunition and other government goods" within a week so that there would be "no need for offenders to be prosecuted if they are discovered".

Image source, Reuters

PM Boris Johnson has vowed to "shift heaven and earth" to help people leave Kabul after 31 August, as evacuations by the UK enter the final stages.

The prime minister said he felt a "great sense of regret" about those left behind in Afghanistan.

The Ministry of Defence said it had closed processing facilities in Kabul, and no more people were being called to the city's airport to leave.

All foreign troops will withdraw by the end of the month.

Mr Johnson added that "the timing of this is certainly not the one that this country would have chosen, and I think that everybody understands that".

Read more here.

As we reported earlier, the US has said it killed a planner for IS-K, an Islamic State affiliate group, in a drone strike in eastern Afghanistan.

The group said it carried out Thursday's deadly bomb attack at Kabul airport in which up to 170 people may have died.

So let's take a look in more detail at IS-K - which stands for Islamic State Khorasan Province.

While you may have not heard of them before, IS-K is the most extreme and violent of all the jihadist militant groups in Afghanistan.

It was set up in January 2015 at the height of IS's power in Iraq and Syria, before its self-declared caliphate was defeated and dismantled by a US-led coalition.

It recruits both Afghan and Pakistani jihadists, especially defecting members of the Afghan Taliban who don't see their own organisation as extreme enough.

At its height, the group numbered about 3,000 fighters. But it has suffered significant casualties in clashes with both the US and Afghan security forces, and also with the Taliban.

You can read more about them here.

The UK's evacuation of civilians from Afghanistan will end today, the chief of the defence staff has said.

Gen Sir Nick Carter spoke of the anguish over leaving people behind in Afghanistan.

"We haven't been able to bring everyone out, and that has been heartbreaking," he told the BBC, adding that he had had scores of messages from Afghans - many of them friends - who would not make it out.

"There have been some very challenging judgements that have had to be made on the ground," he said.

Gen Carter said he hoped that those left behind would be able to get out in the period after the 31 deadline, adding: "We are there for them into the future if they need us."

Read more here

Image source, Reuters

In the wake of Thursday's deadly bomb attack outside Kabul airport, the US military says it has carried out a drone strike, killing a planner for the Afghan branch of the Islamic State group.

The suspected member of IS-K, or Islamic State Khorasan Province, was targeted in Nangarhar province.

A Reaper drone, launched from the Middle East, struck the militant while he was in a car with another IS member, killing them both, an official told Reuters news agency.

A mass airlift has been under way at Kabul airport since Taliban militants overran the capital this month.

Thursday's blast may have killed as many as 170 people, including 13 US troops and dozens of Afghans trying to leave the country.

"We will not forgive, we will not forget. We will hunt you down and make you pay," Mr Biden warned the perpetrators on Friday.

Read more here.

Welcome to Saturday's live coverage of the events in Afghanistan, as foreign forces wrap up their evacuation operations at Kabul airport.

Here are the latest main points:

• The US military says it believes it has killed a planner for the Afghan branch of the Islamic State group in a drone strike in the east of the country
• IS-K had said it was behind Thursday's deadly bomb attack on Kabul airport, which killed up to 170 people
• The US says evacuations will continue at a "very fast pace" up to a 31 August deadline agreed with the Taliban, who now control the country
• But it has issued a new warning to US citizens to stay away from the airport's gates amid "credible" threats of further attacks
• The UK is now focusing on military and diplomatic departures and says no more people will be processed for departure
• But it says it will use "every lever" to help the 800 to 1,100 eligible Afghans and 100 to 150 Britons not yet evacuated
• Taliban officials say they have taken control of parts of the airport but the US says its forces are still in charge.

Image source, EPA

We're pausing our live coverage - thanks for staying with us. Here's a quick recap of the day's developments before we go:

• The death toll from Thursday's attack at Kabul airport has increased to more than 170, a health official says. The BBC is working to verify this figure
• Along with dozens of Afghans killed in the incident were 13 US personnel, two British nationals and the child of a British national
• The US has said it will "hunt down" those responsible for the attack - a powerful bomb blast that a local branch of the Islamic State group said it carried out
• President Joe Biden has been warned by his national security team that another terror attack in the Afghan capital is likely in the coming days
• US officials say the hours leading up to the withdrawal deadline of 31 August will be "the most dangerous period to date". Its mission to evacuate people from Kabul will continue "right up until the last moment", the Pentagon said
• British troops, meanwhile, have been wrapping-up evacuations at Kabul airport and the BBC has been told their mission will end in a matter of hours
• Many other countries - including Germany, Spain, France, Canada and Australia - have ended their evacuation operations

Image source, Getty Images

Award-winning Afghan filmmaker Shahrbanoo Sadat has described the moment she knew she had to leave Kabul.

"We saw Taliban cars with white flags... and... we're running," she told Reuters news agency. "And that was, for me, like a moment of a movie that couldn't be real because I was in the middle of Kabul."

She said it took 72 hours from leaving her apartment to reaching French troops at Kabul airport; she had with her nine members of her family.

As they queued to enter the airport, she said, Taliban fighters were walking around with guns and cables – targeting men, including her father, amid rumours of an attack.

"[A Taliban member] wanted to take him out and I threw myself on my father and [the Taliban member] hit me with the cable that he had... they were so aggressive with men but they didn't really touch the women. He let us go."

Sadat, whose first feature film Wolf and Sheep won a key prize at the Cannes film festival in 2016, said she knew she was one of the lucky ones, but has "all kind of mixed feelings" about what's happened.

"I don't understand all this. Everything was so sudden and so quick," she said. "I want to continue making films but perhaps my point of view is changed... The political thing displaced me so I cannot ignore it anymore because I am hurt by that."

Here you can see an interview with her from 2016 here.

Lucy Williamson
BBC News, Calais, France

Even among the Afghan migrants already living at the camp in Calais, France, Mohammad Wali stands out. Tall and broad, with a huge gap-toothed smile and a blue scarf looped around his head, he seems full of energy, full of hope.

He arrived here a week ago, he told me, after being evacuated from Kabul airport on a French military flight.

Mohammad said he worked as a bodyguard for a political party, whose members were targeted by the Taliban, and that his boss advised him to leave.

He said he then called his mother from the airport. She initially urged him to stay behind with his wife and three children, but eventually gave him her blessing to leave.

"I came to France and after two days my heart is broken," Wali said. "I have one small daughter, she's just 11 months old. I miss my children, I miss my mother."

Afghans here in Calais believe that more than 60 people have crossed to the UK in the past week, hidden inside refrigerated lorries. Mohammad plans to do the same.

Read the full story here.

A retired British soldier who managed to escape Afghanistan in disguise says he fears the friends and colleagues he left behind will not be able to get out as UK evacuations come to an end.

Lloyd Comer served in the British Army for 35 years before moving to the private sector in Kabul.

The 60-year-old disguised himself in Afghan-style clothing to travel through Taliban checkpoints to Kabul airport.

Since he flew back to the UK, Comer says he has been trying "relentlessly" to help his team leave, but they have been unable to get onto the airfield.

"I fear for their ability to get out now. I don't think we've got another route at this time, which is really devastating to be honest," he told the BBC.

He says one of his colleagues was already under threat from the Taliban and had gone into hiding with his family, while others were keeping a low profile.

"I'm going to keep doing the best I can to find whatever routes we might have to be able to get them out," he says. "They deserve a better life than that which they're living right now."

Image source, Pete Senior

As Afghan refugees start to arrive in the UK, hundreds of members of the public have been moved to do what they can to help.

Among them is retired social worker Annie Mellor, who has been renting out a room in the home she shares with her husband Pete on Airbnb for a while.

And now Airbnb has offered to pay for accommodation for 20,000 Afghan refugees, with applications now open worldwide to anyone with a spare room.

But Mellor also a connection to Afghanistan.

"My son worked for an [non-governmental organisation] in Afghanistan - working to empower women there," she explains. "I watched while he worked there and had bombs going off outside his house and I realised what a terrible time Afghan women were having.

"We've got an Airbnb that is in our house - so they would eat and share with us - but they would have their own entrance, and en suite," she says. "If we don't get someone from Afghanistan we have to start looking at other places - Syria is in the same situation."

Meet others helping Afghan refugees in the UK

BBC OS

Image source, Reuters

One of many Afghans to have left the country in the past week is a woman whose independence day protest with the Afghan flag was widely shared on social media.

Twenty-four-year-old Crystal Bayat, who is now in a safe country, has been telling BBC OS about why she stood up to the Taliban.

"If I was not standing and asking for our rights and showing them that women and girls have changed, who else was going to do it?" she says.

"I said goodbye to my family and believed that I'd never come back home alive."

The Taliban has been raising its white banner in place of the Afghan national flag, which has become a symbol of resistance to the militants.

"They didn't allow us to raise our flag. They even shot at us and broke the mobiles of people who were filming. But when they saw the girls, their reaction was different."

Crystal says she was told "a woman can't take part in society" and was pushed and had a gun placed on her shoulder.

"The guy who was supporting me, they beat him very badly."

After receiving threats for her protest, she says she got on a plane out of Kabul with the help of both the French and US authorities.

Image source, Reuters

As the UK enters the final stages of its Kabul evacuation, let's take a look at other countries bringing their operations to a close:

• The US will stay until 31 August if required, the Pentagon says. Washington says more than 111,000 people have been evacuated since the airlift began nearly two weeks ago

• Spain has now ended its evacuation. Two military planes carrying the last 81 Spaniards out of Kabul arrived in Dubai early on Friday

• Germany ended evacuation flights on Thursday. The country's military evacuated 5,347 people, including more than 4,100 Afghans

• France says that, as of Thursday evening, more than 100 French nationals and over 2,500 Afghans had reached French soil. The government says it will no longer be able to evacuate people after Friday evening

• Australia has completed its evacuation efforts and will cease its on-the-ground operations. It has evacuated more than 4,100 people over the past nine days

Image source, Getty Images

Back in the White House briefing room, Press Secretary Jen Psaki dismisses plans to recognise the Taliban's authority in Afghanistan in the near future.

"I want to be really clear: there's no rush to recognition of any sort by the United States or any international partners we have talked to," she says.

Asked about the co-ordination between the Taliban and the US military in recent weeks, Psaki responds: "This is not the only the only place in the world where we have to work with adversaries."

Image source, Getty Images

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki says the US will "hunt down [and] go after" those responsible for the bombing at Kabul airport.

She is pressed by journalists on whether President Biden would be satisfied by capturing those involved and bringing them to trial.

Psaki responds: "I think he made clear he does not want them to live on the earth any more."

On Thursday evening, Biden vowed that the US would "hunt [them] down and make [them] pay.”

Speaking from the White House briefing room, Press Secretary Jen Psaki says the US military has entered the "most dangerous" phase of its mission in Afghanistan because it involves bringing troops and equipment home.

She adds that the number of evacuees will likely decline going forward, before repeating that the US will withdraw its military by the 31 August deadline.

Pressed by journalists on security failures leading up to the bombing on Thursday, Psaki concedes: "Clearly something went wrong here."

Image source, Getty Images

US President Joe Biden has been warned that another terror attack in the Afghan capital Kabul is likely in the coming days, a White House official says.

At a meeting with his national security team, Biden was told that all possible measures were being taken to protect US personnel and others at the city's airport.

"The next few days of this mission will be the most dangerous period to date," the official said, adding that US forces were looking at possible IS-K targets.

IS-K, or Islamic State Khorasan Province, is the group that claimed to be behind Thursday's deadly airport attack.

The president was informed that despite any threat, US troops would continue with the evacuation mission until the 31 August deadline.

The mission, the White House official said, would prioritise the remaining American citizens who wanted to leave, with US forces "engaged in a variety of means to get them to the airport safely".

As we just reported, a health official has told the BBC that the death toll from yesterday's Kabul airport attack has increased to 170.

As we seek further confirmation of that figure, here's a reminder about how the attack unfolded:

• A powerful bomb blast struck the perimeter of Kabul's Hamid Karzai International Airport at about 18:00 local time (13:30 GMT) on Thursday
• The single explosion occurred at the Abbey Gate as civilians queued in the hope of boarding flights out of Taliban-controlled Afghanistan
• Thirteen US personnel, two British nationals and the child of a British national were among those killed in the attack
• A suicide bomber carried out the attack after walking into the middle of families waiting outside the gate, according to UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace
• Some victims were blown into a sewage canal where Afghans were waiting to be processed, while dozens were rushed to hospital for treatment
• Wounded US personnel were flown to an American air base in Germany for treatment

An Afghan public health official has told the BBC that the death toll from Thursday's bombing has risen from 90 to more than 170. The official did not wish to be named.

The increased death toll is unconfirmed, but a similar figure is being reported by several other news outlets. The BBC is now seeking confirmation.

Those killed in the bombing at Kabul's airport were mostly Afghan civilians. Thirteen US service members, two British nationals and the child of a third British national are also confirmed to have died.

IS-K, a local branch of the Islamic State group, has said it carried out the attack.

Frank Gardner
BBC Security Correspondent

Image source, Getty Images

The Kabul attack on Thursday which killed at least 90 people - including 13 US troops - has been claimed by a local branch of Islamic State (IS).

There had been repeated warnings by Western governments beforehand that an attack by IS-K was likely.

But who are they?

IS-K - Islamic State Khorasan Province - is the regional affiliate of the Islamic State group.

It is the most extreme and violent of all the jihadist militant groups in Afghanistan.

IS-K was set up in January 2015 at the height of IS's power in Iraq and Syria, before its self-declared caliphate was defeated and dismantled by a US-led coalition.

It recruits both Afghan and Pakistani jihadists, especially defecting members of the Afghan Taliban who don't see their own organisation as extreme enough.

"Khorasan" refers to a historical region covering parts of modern-day Afghanistan and Pakistan. The group initially included Pakistan until a separate Pakistan section was declared in May 2019.

At its height the group numbered about 3,000 fighters.

However, it has suffered significant casualties in clashes with both the US and Afghan security forces, and also with the Taliban.

Security Correspondent Frank Gardner has been looking into the group's background