We're pausing our live coverage of developments in Afghanistan for now. Here's the latest:

• US President Joe Biden is preparing to address the nation later amid ongoing criticism of his handling of America's withdrawal from Afghanistan
• Several thousands US nationals remain in the country, according to the White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan
• A senior Taliban official has blamed the US for the "evacuation drama" following the group's takeover of Kabul
• Former British prime minister Tony Blair described the US withdrawal of military support as "tragic, dangerous and unnecessary" in his first intervention since the Taliban takeover
• There were calmer scenes at Kabul's airport on Sunday with reports Taliban fighters were firing into the air and using batons to force people into queues
• At least 20 people have died during chaos at the airport since last Sunday, a Nato official told Reuters
• Russian President Vladimir Putin has criticised Western countries for expecting central Asian nations to take in Afghan refugees

Today's live coverage was written by Penny Spiller, Mary O'Connor, Victoria Bisset, Tiffany Wertheimer, and George Bowden, and was edited by Flora Drury and Thom Poole.

Image source, Getty Images

US President Joe Biden is expected to address the nation on Sunday afternoon amid ongoing criticism of his handling of the troops' withdrawal from Afghanistan.

He is expected to provide an update on the evacuation effort in Kabul in his address at 16:00 (20:00 GMT). On Friday, he pledged to evacuate every American and eligible Afghan who wanted to leave.

Mr Biden is under pressure as latest polls suggest three-quarters of Americans think he has badly handled the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan.

An NBC News poll found that just 25% approved of his handling of the situatio, externaln, while 60% disapproved.

A CBS poll meanwhile found that 74% believed the removal of troops had gone somewhat badly to very badly, external.

The president can take some solace from the fact that the majority of Americans, at least 60%, still believe withdrawing US troops from Afghanistan is the right thing to do.

Image source, US Air Force

Pictures of hundreds of Afghans packed into a military plane have put the spotlight on a key piece of US military hardware - the Boeing C-17 Globemaster III.

It's a workhorse of the US Air Force, designed to transport large and heavy equipment, supplies and troops to small airfields anywhere in the world.

The aircraft can be refuelled mid-flight, and has set 33 world records, including the ability to take off and land on very short runways.

In the past, the C-17 has been used in military operations in Bosnia and Kosovo.

Defence and security expert Andy Netherwood put together this thread.

There have been a number of demonstrations against the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in European cities.

Image source, EPA

Image source, EPA

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

Image source, EPA

Afghanistan should never again be allowed to shelter terrorist organisations, the 57-member Organisation of Islamic Co-operation (OIC) said, external after holding an emergency meeting.

The Saudi Arabia-based organisation said it would be sending envoys to Kabul in the coming months to stress the importance of “peace, stability and national reconciliation” in the country.

Expressing solidarity with the Afghan people, the OIC urged “all parties.. to renounce violence and urgently restore security and civil order throughout Afghan society”.

It also "underscored the need" for the international community to assist Afghanistan “in its socio-economic development trajectory without interference in its internal affairs".

By all accounts things are calmer at Kabul airport. These pictures show the scenes outside. Witnesses told Reuters the Taliban has been firing in the air and using batons to force people into queues.

At least 20 deaths have been reported at the airport in recent days as desperate people attempted to access flights.

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

An Afghan Sikh MP has broken down in tears after being evacuated to India.

Narender Singh Khalsa was one of 168 people on board the flight transporting Afghan Sikhs and Hindus and Indian citizens from Kabul on Sunday, according to the PTI news agency.

"We have been in Afghanistan for generations," he told Indian media. "Even the government that was present there for 20 years is no more. Everything is over."

Khalsa stood in Afghanistan's 2018 parliamentary election in the place of his father, who was killed in a suicide bombing a year ealier.

Image source, EPA

The United Nations refugee agency has called on the international community not to ignore the plight of millions of desperate Afghans while focussing solely on the few that can be evacuated.

A spokeswoman for the UNHCR, Catherine Stubberfield, said while the situation at Kabul airport was worrying, across Afghanistan about 20m people were suffering from shortages and more help was needed.

She said "what we really need is much more international support at this point, and that means not focusing only on the worrying situation at Kabul airport and the few that may be able to evacuate from the country but rather the 40m Afghans living there in total and half of them are in need".

The UN estimated there were more than 3.5m displaced Afghans in the country - with many having acute needs such as food, clean water and shelter.

Stubberfield added: "It's critical that people do keep borders open, not only for the purpose of people being able to seek assistance but much more fundamentally for people to be able to seek safety if they're unable to find it within Afghanistan itself."

Lyse Doucet
Chief International Correspondent

It hits you like a brick as soon as you put your foot on the tarmac at Kabul international airport.

The intensity, the urgency, the darkness of this hour. In every direction I look, there are the huge grey military transport planes from the US and many other countries. Military helicopters are in the sky.

Heading towards every single plane are long queues of Afghans. The lines don’t seem to end. They have been told they can only bring one suitcase and the clothes they are wearing, as they leave their country behind - the country now controlled by the Taliban.

But it's not just the country they are leaving. They are leaving behind the life they lived, and for the young educated generation, the life they built up, the dreams they cherished over 20 years.

There are said to be 14,000 people inside this airfield, controlled by US military, waiting to board. There are another 10,000 or more people outside - a crush of people wanting to leave however they can.

No one wanted this moment, expected this moment - will forget this moment.

Several thousand US citizens are believed to still be in Afghanistan, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan has said.

Speaking to CNN's State of the Union programme on Sunday, Sullivan said he could not give a precise number, but noted that work was continuing to evacuate them.

Sullivan also described the threat of attacks by the Islamic State group against the airport as "real" and "acute".

His comments came on the same day that the Pentagon confirmed it would use 18 civilian aircraft to help the ongoing US evacuation out of Afghanistan.

The planes will not fly into Kabul, but will instead be used to help transfer passengers transiting in third countries.

Image source, Sputnik/Mikhail Voskresenskiy/Kremlin via Reuters

Russian President Vladimir Putin has criticised western countries for expecting Russia's Central Asian neighbours to take in Afghan refugees while their visas to the US and Europe are being processed, Reuters reports.

Speaking at a meeting of the governing (United Russia) party in Moscow, he said: "Our western partners are insisting on an option to allocate (Afghan) refugees in Central Asian countries until they get visas for US and other countries.

"Does that mean (they say) it is possible to send them to these countries, to our neighbours without visas - but they don't want to accept them without visas themselves?

The US has reportedly been negotiating with some countries to temporarily house Afghan refugees.

Russia allows visa-free travel for residents of former Soviet central Asian countries, and Putin has expressed concerns militants could travel undercover as refugees.

A primary school head teacher in the UK has spoken of her efforts to secure the evacuation from Kabul of a family from Nottinghamshire.

Amanda Dawson said there was "no handbook for teachers and what to do if you have a family trapped in a warzone - I just followed my instincts".

The teacher contacted the UK Foreign Office and her local member of Parliament who helped sort paperwork.

It has been confirmed that the mother, older daughter and two children, aged five and nine, secured a flight to Dubai after a lengthy wait in Kabul. They had been in Afghanistan to visit sick relatives and are due back in the UK shortly.

Raghib, the family's father, was in the UK with other children and had appealed for help in getting his family back to Britain.

Read more here.

The BBC's Chief International Correspondent Lyse Doucet has shared this photo from Kabul airport:

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said he will bring G7 leaders together for urgent talks on the situation in Afghanistan on Tuesday.

In a tweet, Johnson said it "was vital that the international community works together to ensure safe evacuations, prevent a humanitarian crisis and support the Afghan people to secure the gains of the last 20 years".

The UK holds the rotating presidency of the G7 - the other members of which are Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the US - this year.

Image source, Getty Images

A senior Taliban official has accused the West of seeking “to create panic and chaos” in Afghanistan, following the Islamist group’s takeover of the capital Kabul.

Speaking on Sunday, Amir Khan Mutaqi said that the only place in chaos right now is the Kabul Airport, where people - he alleged - are being shot and killed.

He went on to claim the US was trying to hide its defeat by creating an "evacuation drama".

Mutaqi also addressed potential dissatisfaction within Taliban ranks, arguing that “certain decisions are made in the long-term interest” of the movement and its role in Afghanistan.

He also announced that the Taliban is in talks with “all factions” to reach an agreement on a future government.

The Visual and Data Journalism Team

Image source, EPA

We have seen the pictures of thousands of Afghans trying to flee the country via Kabul airport, but it is unclear exactly how many people are trying to leave the country.

There are already 2.2 million Afghan refugees in neighbouring countries and 3.5 million people internally displaced as a result of years of conflict and political instability.

In recent days there have been reports of several thousand Afghans crossing into Pakistan and a few hundred arriving in Tajikstan and Uzbekistan, even though the Taliban now control the land borders. Iran has set up emergency tents in anticipation of an influx.

While a number of European countries have offered to take in refugees, they are keen to avoid a repeat of the 2015 migrant crisis, when there was a populist backlash to large numbers of refugees being allowed to enter EU territory.

You can read more on which countries are taking in refugees here.

It's been a busy day of updates and reaction to the crisis engulfing Afghanistan. If you're just joining us, here's a quick roundup of the top headlines this Sunday:

• Ex-UK Prime Minister Tony Blair - who led the UK when it invaded Afghanistan alongside the US in 2001 - has criticised the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and stressed the situation puts the Afghan people and the security of the West at risk
• The Pentagon has announced that US commercial planes will be drafted in to help move people evacuated from Afghanistan on to other countries
• The military alliance Nato says at least 20 people have died in and around Kabul international airport in the last week amid chaotic scenes as thousands desperately try to flee the Taliban. Earlier, the UK Ministry of Defence said seven Afghan civilians had died outside the airport
• Efforts to evacuate Britons and eligible Afghans from Kabul are improving, with more than 1,700 people airlifted out in the past 24 hours, the armed forces minister has said
• Former chief of the defence staff General Lord Richards called for troops to stay beyond the 31 August deadline to help evacuations and save lives; alongside a properly coordinated international strategy

Commercial planes from the US will be used to help with the movement of people evacuated from Afghanistan, the Pentagon has announced.

A spokesman for the US Department of Defense said on Sunday that 18 aircraft - from companies including United, American Airlines and Delta - would not fly into Kabul directly.

Instead, they will transport people who have already been taken out of Afghanistan and are travelling on to third countries.

No major impact is expected on commercial flights, the spokesman said.

So far, more than a dozen countries have agreed to act as transit points for American military flights evacuating US and other nationals from the Afghan capital.

Former Prime Minister Tony Blair - who called the withdrawal of US troops "tragic, dangerous, and unnecessary" in an online article - has been talking to broadcasters about the crisis in the country.

Mr Blair, who led the UK when it invaded Afghanistan alongside the US in 2001, stresses that whilst he has "great respect and admiration" for President Joe Biden, "we've got to realise we were in a situation where... we could've managed the situation".

He added: "I understand that if you're a political leader, you're under political pressure, people want the engagement to end.

"But we've got to realise that we were in a situation where our engagement was dramatically different from where it was 10 years ago, never mind 20 years ago, and when we could have managed the situation.

"The problem with what's happened now, and is this is my worry, is that it is not just about the Afghan people and our obligation to them...it is about us and our security."

You can read more here.

A week after the Taliban takeover of the country, many Afghans are fearful of what it will mean for their lives and their safety. Here a young female student in Afghanistan shares her feelings about what is happening in her country.

It is the seventh day since the country collapsed, the president escaped, and the Taliban, once again, came to power.

We are left behind...

Fear has taken over my whole being, and as the days pass, I can feel how hope fades away from within me. It gets replaced with frustration. All I can see is darkness, uncertainty, and a not so bright future.

I will be killed certainly, I have reasons to be...

This is how it feels when the ones you are afraid of occupy the country.

Imagine being on a long road, with no end, with hazy weather; alone.

I have witnessed so many hurdles in my life, many that no other girl would be able to tolerate. I could manage to overcome them, but this...

Hey world, do you care what happens here? Do we matter to you? Do you see us? Do you?

For those who are listening, for those who care, I am writing this. I am saying this.

We are suffering here, we are being left behind, we are dying every day, every second.

Living with fear is no less than death. It is worse than that. A little bit hopeful during the days, too much fear at nights.

This is how days pass. For how long will it be the same? Until an uncertain time. Like this?

If you are listening to us, help us. Help us survive, and once again believe in light and rise; stronger than before.

Tell your countries to stop war - war is ugly, it has a dirty face, it has no winner. The heart is too tiny to bear war, to bear its consequences...

We are the fruit of war, some young girls drown in uncertainties, in fear, in doubts... looking for somebody to help us survive. Looking at our families and crying for being unable to do anything.

Looking at the sky and asking from him: do you see us, will you help us? Shall I have hope, that little hope!

Hey world, hey people living out there, lucky you! I envy the life you live...

Look at us. I was the one with so many big dreams, dreams of helping others and now I am seeking help.

This is war. Will I be able to ever say: We did it? We could make it? Will I?