Image source, Getty Images

If you're just joining us, here are some of the main developments out of Afghanistan so far today:

• Evacuation efforts are continuing at Kabul airport following yesterday's twin bomb attacks that killed at least 90 people and injured more than 150

• Hospitals in Kabul, already struggling with fewer staff since the Taliban took power a week ago, have been overwhelmed with patients
• Families are desperately searching for loved ones who have gone missing, including children
• Meanwhile, as evacuees arrived at Germany's Ramstein Air Base, it became apparent that some families had been separated, with more than a dozen children turning up alone
• British forces have entered the final stages of evacuating people. Around 800 to 1,100 eligible Afghans will be left behind, a government official says. Approximately 100 to 150 British nationals will also remain in Afghanistan, some of whom want to stay

• A US expert in counter-terrorism has warned that American troops need to take control of the perimeter of Kabul's airport to prevent another attack during the evacuation process
• The US has said it will hunt down the jihadists behind Thursday's attacks, which were claimed by the Islamic State Khorasan Province, or IS-K

Dominic Casciani
Home Affairs Correspondent

Heathrow's Terminal 4 has become a refugee processing hub where five flights a day bring more than 1,000 Afghans to safety - part of 15,000 who have arrived so far.

Children grip their parents' hands. Grandparents clutch folders of identity documents proving their right to come to the UK. Volunteers from the Red Cross hand out food parcels with sandwiches - a very British welcome.

Image source, Reuters

I met Wahis, a British-Afghan, who returned to the homeland he fled as a refugee to find and bring his younger sisters and their small children to safety.

"The Taliban are literally driving around every day, in certain roads, they try to find certain people," he told me.

"They went through [the family] house - they would have probably taken my sisters. That's what they do."

Malalai Hussiny's father had worked in the British embassy. She showed me footage on her phone of a Taliban fighter sneaking around her family home in the dead of night.

She says: "I am very happy to be here because the UK has helped us, our people in Afghanistan are coming here. I am so very happy - and now me and my family safe here. Thank you a lot in UK."

Here are more stories from those I spoke to at Heathrow airport.

Image source, Getty Images

The UN has called for those responsible for the "hideous assault on desperate civilians" in Kabul to be "caught and brought to justice".

The deadly attacks targeting people queuing at the airport in the Afghan capital were "clearly calculated to kill and maim as many people as possible: civilians - children, women, fathers, mothers," Rupert Colville, a spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said.

"It was an attack specifically designed to cause carnage, and it has caused carnage," he added.

US President Joe Biden has promised to hunt down the jihadists behind an attack in Kabul which killed at least 90 people - including 13 American troops.

The Labour Party leader, Sir Keir Starmer, has paid tribute to the "courage and bravery" of those still working on the final UK evacuations from Kabul, adding that it is "a dark day for those in Afghanistan".

"[The] immediate concern is those who have been left behind who urgently need that protection, that support, right now," he said.

He described the events of the last fortnight as "a huge setback regionally and globally".

"In due course there are going to be some searing questions for the government about the lack of preparation," he added.

Asked if he would put more pressure on US President Joe Biden, he said he wanted "global leadership on this issue" going forward.

Tom Bateman
BBC Middle East correspondent

Image source, Getty Images

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan says his government is in direct talks with the Taliban about helping run Kabul airport, after the departure of international forces at the end of this month.

President Erdogan says Turkish officials held talks with the Taliban for three and half hours - suggesting the group is open to Turkey running the airport - but crucially with the Taliban in charge of its security.

The question of how Kabul airport is run and secured is crucial for the country’s future; the US has already said it must function for Afghanistan to have "some semblence" of a relationship with the world.

Turkey is a member of NATO and has been part of the alliance’s forces in the country. It has secured the airport for the last six years.

But the Taliban wants Turkish troops, along with all international forces, out. President Erdogan says despite the talks there’s no decision yet about maintaining a presence at the airport, warning of getting "sucked in" to a dangerous situation in light of Thursday’s attacks.

Image source, Getty Images

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 United States will stay until 31 August if required, the Pentagon has said.

In total, around 12,500 people were evacuated on Thursday, raising the overall evacuees since the Taliban takeover on 14 August to about 105,000, the White House said on Friday.

Spain has now ended its evacuation, the government said.

Two military planes carrying the last 81 Spaniards out of Kabul arrived in Dubai early on Friday. The planes were also carrying four Portuguese soldiers and 83 Afghans who had worked with Nato countries, the government said.

Germany ended evacuation flights on Thursday.

The German military evacuated 5,347 people, including more than 4,100 Afghans.

The French Defence Ministry said that, as of Thursday evening, more than 100 French nationals and more than 2,500 Afghans had reached French soil after being evacuated from Kabul.

France will no longer be able to evacuate people after Friday evening, Prime Minister Jean Castex has told local radio.

Australia has completed its evacuation efforts and will cease its on-the-ground operations, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said.

Canberra has evacuated more than 4,100 people over the past nine days including citizens and Afghans with Australian visas.

Morrison's government has resisted some calls to offer a 20,000-spot asylum programme like the UK and Canada.

Image source, AFP

Thursday’s twin attacks were claimed by the Islamic State Khorasan Province, or IS-K.

While there is a peripheral connection between Islamic State (IS) militants and the Taliban, there are also major differences and IS will present a major security challenge for the incoming Afghan government, says the BBC's Security Correspondent Frank Gardner.

IS accuses the Taliban of abandoning Jihad, and disillusioned members of the Afghan Taliban have defected to the extremist group.

IS militants have also been blamed for some of the worst atrocities in recent years, targeting girls' schools, hospitals and even a maternity ward where they reportedly shot dead pregnant women and nurses.

Unlike the Taliban, whose interest is confined to Afghanistan, IS-K are part of the global IS network that seeks to carry out attacks on Western, international and humanitarian targets wherever they can reach them.

You can read more on Frank Gardner's analysis here.

US forces will be the last to leavepublished at 11:48 British Summer Time 27 August 2021

11:48 BST 27 August 2021

Jonathan Beale
BBC defence correspondent

With the deadline fast looming, the British evacuation operation was always going to end soon.

Other European nations have already ended their rescue flights. But the attacks at the airport have made it more dangerous.

The Ministry of Defence says the decision to close the UK's processing centre reflects the situation on the ground with "an ongoing and serious threat of terrorist attack at the airport". It means no new cases will be processed.

Some of the 1,000 British troops on the ground have already left.

Defence Secretary Ben Wallace says some military equipment will have to be left behind.

As throughout this operation it is the United States that is dictating the sequence of this withdrawal. And it will be US forces, who have provided the bulk of the security, who will be the last to leave.

Image source, MOD

As we reported earlier, British forces have entered the final stages of evacuating people from Kabul airport. Here's what we know.

• The Ministry of Defence says efforts will focus on British nationals and others who have already been cleared to leave and are at the airport. No more people will be called to the airport for evacuation.
• Eight to nine more flights will come into Kabul to evacuate around 1,000 people who remain inside the airfield, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace says.
• Around 800 to 1,100 eligible Afghans will be left behind, as well as approximately 100 to 150 British nationals, some of whom want to stay, Wallace tells LBC.
• He would not confirm when the last British troops would leave the country, but says this will be before the US withdraws by 31 August.
• Wallace says the UK's Afghan relocation scheme will remain open "indefinitely" and if eligible people are able to get to other countries, the UK can process them there

We've got more detail on the UK's final stages of evacuation from Kabul here.

Image source, Getty Images

A young female journalist says she, her mother, seven brothers and three sisters have been abandoned by her father, who was evacuated from Afghanistan with his second wife.

Zalash, not her real name, says she has been told by the Taliban that if she returns to her job as a journalist she will be killed.

She told BBC 5 Live she and her family were in temporary accommodation and feared for their lives.

“I want to try to save my family’s life. It is heart-breaking for me. They want to go to university and school. We are so poor. We have one pen and the whole family is using it for schoolwork,” she said.

Zalash, 18, said the family had been told by her father to go to the airport, and they waited for him for nearly 24 hours.

“We had a hard time. We didn’t sleep. We stayed in the hot sun. The place was very dirty,” she said.

“Then the troops told us my father didn’t want us to go on the plane. He took his other wife and family. He said if we didn’t leave he would slap me.

“We are left with tears and broken hearts. Our only hope is God.“

Image source, MARCUS YAM / LOS ANGELES TIMES

The World Health Organization (WHO) has described the need for medical supplies as "enormous and growing".

Rick Brennan, WHO's regional emergency director, was speaking as medical supplies began to run out in Afghanistan.

But the WHO says it is planning to establish an air bridge into the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif with the help of the Pakistani government within two or three days.

Trauma kits and emergency supplies for hospitals, as well as medicines for treating chronic malnutrition among children are among priority items, Brennan told a Geneva briefing.

"Right now because of security concerns and several other operational considerations, Kabul airport is not going to be an option for the next week at least," he said.

It comes after two explosions hit Kabul airport on Thursday, killing some 90 people. At least 150 people were also wounded in the attack, which the Islamic State group says it was behind.

Meanwhile, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) has tweeted that it is committed to continuing its work.

Joshua Nevett
Journalist, BBC World Online

Image source, Zarifa Ghafari

The fall of Kabul to the Taliban was a foreboding moment for Zarifa Ghafari, one of Afghanistan's first female mayors.

As Taliban fighters descended on the Afghan capital, she realised her life was suddenly in grave danger. Days later she fled with her family to Germany and has told the story of her dramatic escape to the BBC.

Ms Ghafari, 29, had become a prominent public official and voice for women's rights.

This, she believed, made her a threat to the Taliban, who are known for restricting the role of women in line with their strict interpretation of Islam. "My voice has the power that no guns have," she said.

At first, Ms Ghafari was defiant, even as she feared death during the Taliban's lightning-quick seizure of power. But that optimism has now turned to despair.

On 18 August, she arranged for a car to take her and her family to Kabul airport.

During the journey, she hid in a footwell in the car, ducking for cover every time they passed through a Taliban checkpoint.

"When we reached the airport gate, there were Taliban fighters everywhere," she said. "I was struggling to hide myself."

Read more here.

Kabul is reeling from two explosions at the city's airport on Thursday, which killed some 90 people, including 13 US military personnel.

At least 150 people were also wounded in the attacks, which the Islamic State group says it carried out.

Taliban fighters have been guarding the scene, which is strewn with discarded clothing and bags.

Image source, AFP via Getty Images

Image source, AFP via Getty Images

Image source, AFP via Getty Images

Image source, AFP via Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

Joel Gunter
BBC News

Like millions of other Afghans, the country's Uyghurs are waking up to a different reality this week, one in which the Taliban is in charge. Like other Afghans, the Uyghurs fear a worse existence under the Taliban. But they also fear something else: greater influence for China.

There are about 12 million Uyghurs in China, concentrated in the northwestern Xinjiang province, and since 2017 they and other Muslim minorities have been subjected to a state campaign of mass detention, surveillance, and forced labour.

Now Uyghur communities in Afghanistan fear China will enter the vacuum left by the US, offering the Taliban resources and legitimacy, and potentially seeking information about the country’s Uyghurs in return.

"That is the biggest fear for Uyghurs in Afghanistan now," said a man in his fifties in Kabul, who said his family had not left their house since the Taliban took power.

"We fear the Taliban will help China control our movements, or they will arrest us and hand us over to China," he said.

All the Uyghurs in Afghanistan who spoke to the BBC said they had been effectively hiding at home since the Taliban seized the country, communicating only occasionally by phone.

"We are like a living dead people now," said another Uyghur man in Kabul. "Too scared even to go outside."

Read the full story: Afghanistan's Uyghurs fear the Taliban,and now China too

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Getty Images

American troops need to take immediate control of the perimeter of Kabul’s airport to prevent another attack during the evacuation process, a US expert in counter-terrorism says.

“It’s simply unacceptable that the US or any civilised nation would trust the Taliban to provide security,” Ambassador Nathan Sales, former special envoy to the global coalition to defeat Isis under President Trump, told the BBC’s Today programme.

He said President Biden must act on his promise to catch those responsible for the attack and urged the US government to rethink its plans to leave by 31 August.

“We need to keep a military presence on the ground for as long as it takes to evacuate every American who, if left behind, will be showing up in hostage videos, and Afghan allies who believe in America and put their lives on the line to help this country."

Ambassador Sales said history is likely to judge the White House’s decision to surrender control of Bagram airbase in early July as “monumentally incompetent” as it would have been a “much more secure” base from which to evacuate Americans and their allies than Kabul airport.

Image source, Getty Images

"Every effort" was made to destroy sensitive material when British embassy staff evacuated their Kabul building as the Taliban approached, the Foreign Office has said.

It comes after a report in the Times, external said documents with contact details of Afghans working for the UK had been found "scattered on the ground".

The Foreign Office said three families mentioned in the Times story had been helped to safety.

It added staff had worked "at pace as the situation in Kabul deteriorated".

The UK relocated its embassy in Kabul to a secure location near the airport on 13 August as Taliban fighters approached Afghanistan's capital.

The Foreign Office had already been advising British nationals to leave the country and was continuing to relocate former Afghan staff and their families to the UK under a policy announced in May.

According to the Times, the documents identifying Afghan workers and job applicants were discovered on Tuesday this week on the ground at the embassy compound, which by then was occupied by the Taliban.

Read more here.

Image source, Reuters

Doctors and nurses in Kabul worked through the night to treat some of the 150 people injured in Thursday's double bomb attack near the airport.

Hospitals, already struggling with fewer staff since the Taliban took power a week ago, have been overwhelmed.

The Kabul Surgical Centre, run by the international medical charity Emergency, said it received 60 wounded in less than two hours, including at least 16 people pronounced dead on arrival.

The charity's president, Rossella Miccio, not in Afghanistan, said staff who had already finished their shifts went straight back to the hospital to help.

"The three operating theatres of the hospital have been working all night long," she told the BBC's Today programme. "The last patient was operated on at 4 o'clock."

She said some of the patients remain in intensive care "so the situation is still quite critical".

The hospital's medical co-ordinator said in a post on the group's Twitter account that patients were "terrified, their eyes totally lost in emptiness, their gaze blank. Rarely have we seen such a situation."

The UK has entered the last stages of its evacuation operations at Kabul airport.

The Secretary of State for Defence, Ben Wallace, said that the final approximately 1,000 people were being processed for evacuation and would be flown out on Friday. Following this, UK troops will be evacuated.

Wallace also told the BBC that some of the British Army's equipment would be destroyed or left behind in order to create more space for evacuees.

Islamic State Khorasan (IS-K) has said it was behind the twin blasts at the Kabul airport that killed 90 and injured more than 150 people.

But who is this group and what are their objectives?

The BBC's security correspondent Frank Gardiner says the group is the most extreme and violent of all the jihadist militant groups in Afghanistan.

It is a regional affiliate of the group calling itself Islamic State and is active in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The group has been blamed for some of the worst atrocities in recent years, targeting girls' schools, hospitals, and even a maternity ward pregnant women, infants, and nurses were shot dead.

They are part of the global IS network that seeks to carry out attacks on western, international and humanitarian targets wherever they can reach them.

IS-K have links to the Taliban through a third party, the Haqqani network.

But they have major differences with the Taliban, accusing them of abandoning Jihad and the battlefield in favour of a negotiated peace settlement.

IS fighters now represent a major security challenge for the incoming Taliban government.

UK Defence Minister Ben Wallace says there are just "hours" left in the UK's mission to help people flee the Taliban.

"The sad fact is not every single one will get out," Wallace tells Sky News.

No further people will be called forward to go to the airport, he says, adding that the UK has closed the Baron Hotel, where those wanting to fly to Britain had gathered.

The threat of further attacks around Kabul airport will increase as Western troops get closer to leaving, he says.

"The narrative is always going to be, as we leave, certain groups such as ISIS will want to stake a claim that they have driven out the US or the UK."

Asked how history would remember the West's involvement in the country, Wallace says that you "don't fix problems like Afghanistan".

"The West seems to think it flies in, does a few things and everything will be alright," he says.

"You don't fix problems like Afghanistan - a thousand years of tribal fighting, war. You manage them and if you wish to engage in national building or supporting a nation, you're probably best doing it as an international body ... and you need to be prepared to be there for the long run."