Image source, US Marine Corps/Reuters

More now on the situation at the airport. A Nato official has told Reuters at least 20 people have died in and around Kabul airport since the Taliban seized control of the capital last Sunday.

"The crisis outside the Kabul airport is unfortunate. Our focus is to evacuate all foreigners as soon as we can," the unnamed official said.

"Our forces are maintaining strict distance from outer areas of the Kabul airport to prevent any clashes with the Taliban," the NATO official added.

The UK's Ministry of Defence (MoD) said earlier that seven Afghan civilians had been killed outside the airport, giving few other details.

A synagogue in southern England has been inundated with donations after it issued an appeal for help for Afghan refugees arriving in the local area.

Rabbi Elchonon Feldman of Bushey synagogue tells the BBC that he expected a few things to be brought in, but donations had exceeded "anything we could have predicted" and showed the call for help had "reached the hearts of our local community".

He says people have donated new items for men, women and children, including basics necessities such as warm clothing and toiletries, but also things like toys and sweets.

The Jewish community "recognise that our grandparents came into this country as refugees and all we're trying to do is pay it back forward" and show "gratitude" to the UK by "giving to those who need it now", Rabbi Feldman says.

He adds that he when he visited some Afghan refugees yesterday, he told them that "one day they will be finding that their children will be giving forward to refugees in the next generation as well".

The donations will be distributed through a number of channels, he says, including charities, and he urged anyone with links to established organisations to get in touch.

These pictures are from the women-only Lesah Mariam market in Kabul. Even after the religious holiday of Ashura, the market is yet to see frequent customers.

Women present at the market feared for their lives and were afraid to speak on camera.

Some vendors who did talk to us said they are still waiting for people to turn up.

"We have opened our shops, but there are no customers," they said.

"We aren’t clear about Taliban’s policy yet," said one shopkeeper selling veils, adding that there was confusion over whether to sell the all-encompassing burka which was imposed on all women during the Taliban's rule in the 1990s, or the long loose-fitting abaya robe.

Image source, Ministry of Defence

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.

On Sunday, the UK government said seven Afghan civilians had died in the chaotic crowds outside the airport.

But minister James Heappey said the Taliban was now marshalling people into queues, making the process quicker.

He urged more people to come forward if they had been told to do so.

Image source, AFP

An anti-Taliban resistance movement in northern Afghanistan has said it is willing to negotiate with the Taliban but is also prepared for a long-term conflict.

A spokesman for the National Resistance Front told the AFP news agency that Ahmad Massoud - the son of famed anti-Soviet military leader and politician Ahmad Shah Massoud - had gathered around 9,000 fighters in the Panjshir valley to the northeast of Kabul.

In a separate interview, leader Ahmad Massoud told the London-based newspaper Al-Sharq al-Awsat that his movement hoped for talks but was "prepared to defend until the last man".

"We are ready to form an inclusive government with the Taliban through political negotiations. But what is unacceptable is the formation of an Afghan government characterised by extremism, which would pose a serious threat not only to Afghanistan, but also to the region and the whole world."

General Lord Richards, who was Chief of the Defence Staff and commanded international forces in Afghanistan when the mission was expanded in 2006, has called for troops to stay beyond the 31 August deadline to help evacuations.

Asked if such a move would save lives, he told BBC Radio 4’s Broadcasting House programme: "Yes. There’s no doubt about it."

Tens of thousands of people are still waiting to be evacuated from Afghanistan ahead of the looming 31 August deadline for the withdrawal of US troops.

Gen Richard says that what is needed now is a "UN multilateral humanitarian intervention operation" that is implemented "quickly".

"On this one, I think there might be an international consensus and the Taliban ironically might well welcome it, because the alternative is some very bad headlines come 1 September when we see starving Afghans and worse potentially, simply because they don’t have the capacity to deal with it."

He added there was a "whole world out there" beyond Kabul airport that international forces needed to be able to get to, which would only be achieved with the Taliban's consent and a properly coordinated international strategy.

It has been one week since the Taliban completed their takeover of Afghanistan. Here's a brief recap of what's happened:

Sunday

• The Taliban seize control of the capital Kabul, and take over the presidential palace
• President Ashraf Ghani flees the country, saying he wanted "to prevent bloodshed"

Monday

• Scenes of panic at Kabul’s international airport as thousands desperately try to leave

• There are noticeably fewer women out and about, local journalists report

• US President Joe Biden cuts his vacation short and defends his decision to pull out his troops

Tuesday

• Several Taliban leaders arrive in Afghanistan from exile in Qatar
• The militants hold their first news conference since taking control, promising freedom for women and the media “within the framework of Islamic law”

Wednesday

• President Ghani reveals he is in the United Arab Emirates
• Witnesses say militants shot dead three protesters and hurt others in anti-Taliban protests in Jalalabad

• President Biden says the “chaos was inevitable” and that US troops may stay in Afghanistan beyond the planned 31 August withdrawal date to help evacuate Americans

Thursday

• Afghan protesters mark Independence Day by waving the Afghan national flag
• Vision emerges of young children being handed over a wall to soldiers at Kabul airport, in a desperate attempt by their parents to get them to safety

Friday

• An intelligence report says the Taliban are going door-to-door searching for people who worked for Nato forces or the previous Afghan government, and threatening their family members
• Taliban fighters looking for a journalist who works for the German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW) shoot dead one of his close relatives
• Seven people are killed in an attack on the Afghan ministry of information in Kabul. The Taliban says it is not behind the attack

Saturday

• The US says it is worried about potential attacks by the Islamic State (IS) group
• Foreign governments tell their citizens to stay away from the airport because of the chaos, unless they are told to go there for a flight

Sunday

• EU and UK officials say it will be impossible to evacuate everyone by the end of the month

In an comment article for the Mail on Sunday newspaper, external, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace hinted the UK would welcome an extension to the 31 August target date by the US for withdrawing its troops, as foreign powers continue their efforts to evacuate their citizens and eligible Afghans.

In the article, Wallace said "no nation will be able to get everyone out" of the Taliban-controlled country, and that "time is ticking along, impossible to stop" towards the deadline.

"If the US timetable remains, we have no time to lose to get the majority of the people waiting out," he wrote.

But he added that the UK would offer its "complete support" if President Joe Biden opted to extend the deadline for the withdrawal of US troops.

Wallace also said the UK was "exploring ways to keep a presence in the country after the military are gone".

We've been hearing more about the situation on the ground from Isabelle Carlsen, who heads the UN's humanitarian office in Afghanistan.

"Because of the drought, but also the conflict, we've seen one third of Afghans food insecure for 2021, and that also has a direct impact on malnutrition," she says. “For this year, half of the children under five are suffering from acute malnutrition.”

Food shortages remain a concern, Carlsen says, but she adds that the World Food Programme has been bringing food into Afghanistan by land in recent days, with food distributed to 80,000 people in the past week.

While humanitarian programmes have “mostly been able to continue”, she voices her concern at events at Kabul airport.

“The reports on the situation at the airport are absolutely worrying and very disturbing, and we collectively need to ensure that these people are not put into more harm's way.”

Image source, Reuters

Col Richard Kemp, a former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, has criticised US President Joe Biden for the chaotic scenes we've seen over the past week at Kabul airport.

Biden, he said, "decided to unconditionally withdraw without any restrictions placed on the Taliban...he did so at great speed, too quickly to give the Afghan government the chance to readapt, to adjust to a totally situation and also to the height of the Taliban fighting season."

He believes the scenes "would have been a lot less horrific" had the US withdrawal happened in October or beyond that "when the Taliban are a lot less active and powerful".

Col Kemp adds that statements made by UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and President Biden that the Taliban would not be able to take military victory in Afghanistan showed they were "badly advised" and had "no appreciation of the situation and the fragility of the Afghan government and the Afghan national security forces when western forces pulled out".

Kim Sengupta, defence and security editor at The Independent newspaper, says he saw four people die in the crushes outside Kabul airport on Saturday. He spoke to BBC Radio 4’s Broadcasting House about what he witnessed.

"The crowd yesterday seemed to be OK at first but then there was a sudden surge.

"The sudden surge was because people have been hearing what politicians have been saying in London and Washington, and they had come to the conclusion that the foreign governments will stop the airlifts within days. That added to the already prevailing sense of panic.

"People started dying. All women.

"One lady died and her husband was obviously bereft. She died and one of her three daughters is still missing.

"This was followed by three others dying.

"These are just the four deaths we saw. There are undoubtedly other deaths taking place in various other points, which we don’t know about.

"There was no shooting involved. It’s just the sudden crushes, combined with the fierce heat and the sense of panic, which go over the crowd like waves.

"It’s the most vulnerable who died.

"It’s a very, very shattering situation."

Image source, Reuters

Former US President Donald Trump has criticised his successor's handling of the withdrawal from Afghanistan as the "greatest foreign policy humiliation" in US history.

Speaking at a rally of his supporters, Trump repeatedly blamed Biden for the Taliban's capture of Afghanistan.

"Biden’s botched exit in Afghanistan is the most astonishing display of gross incompetence by a nation’s leader, perhaps at any time," he said.

The withdrawal of US troops was negotiated by Trump's administration in a deal with the Taliban back in February 2020.

The deal committed to the withdrawal of US and allied troops from Afghanistan by May 2021.

It also said the Taliban should take steps to prevent groups including al-Qaeda from threatening the security of the US and its allies.

After his election, President Biden continued the plan for withdrawal but with an end date of 31 August.

Trump blamed the situation in Afghanistan on Biden not having followed his administration's plan, saying US troops leaving the country was "not a withdrawal" but a "total surrender".

Biden has said he stands "squarely" behind the US exit from the country, and that he inherited a bad withdrawal deal from Trump.

The chaotic scenes at Kabul's airport has prompted calls for UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab to ramp up efforts to help British citizens and eligible Afghans leave the country.

Shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy said she had heard of people being beaten, shot at or raped while trying to get documentation in Kabul - and urged Raab to work with Nato partners to set up a safe corridor to the airport.

She said many of those stranded outside the airport were women or girls, and asked Raab to consider establishing a military policing operation with Nato allies "just outside the gate, or a processing zone inside".

The Foreign Office says it is trying to get people out as quickly as possible - and that more than 3,000 people, including British nationals and Afghan staff, have been evacuated from the country since Sunday.

An Afghan aid worker who managed to leave Kabul this week has warned of international consequences of the Taliban's return to power.

"On the one hand you have a barbaric group that is called the Taliban, and on the other hand you have thousands of Afghans who had a hope... who invested their lives, their money in Afghanistan and they were hopeful about the future," Abdul Ghafoor, the director of the Afghanistan Migrants Advice and Support Organization, told the BBC from Germany.

"So you have these two opposite groups against each other and the outcome of this would be very, very dangerous - not only for Afghanistan, but for all the world."

He said the international community needed to consider the fate of Afghans who were unable to leave the country.

"How many people will be able to leave Afghanistan: thousands? A few thousand? How about the rest of the millions who will be left behind?" he asked.

"It is the USA, it is the European countries' responsibility because they left them alone, and they now have to now follow up and monitor so that they can have a little freedom... and survive".

Image source, Reuters

Two military bases in southern Spain will be used to support US evacuations from Kabul, the Spanish government has said.

In a telephone conversation on Saturday night, US President Joe Biden and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said the bases near Seville and Cádiz would be used to host Afghans who had worked with the US, pending their transfer to other countries.

Spain has already opened a reception centre outside Madrid for Afghan employees of EU bodies evacuated from Kabul, which the Spanish prime minister and senior EU officials visited on Saturday.

Image source, Moncloa Palace/ Handout via Reuters

On Friday, US flights from Kabul were temporarily halted after the processing facilities in Qatar reached capacity.

A number of other countries, including the UAE and Bahrain, are now facilitating transits for the US as people continue to leave Afghanistan.

Image source, Reuters

US President Joe Biden is facing increasing pressure to extend a 31 August deadline to withdraw troops from Afghanistan.

A number of countries have said it will not be possible to evacuate all foreign citizens by the end of the month.

UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace has said that "no nation will be able to get everyone out".

He told the Mail on Sunday that time is "ticking along, impossible to stop" towards the end of the UK's military operation in Afghanistan, but added that the UK would support the US if it opts to extend the deadline.

Meanwhile, the European Union's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has said it is "mathematically impossible" to evacuate 60,000 people by the end of the month.

Borrell said just 150 of the 400 Afghans employed by the EU have been evacuated so far, and that it is "very insufficient".

"Planes are leaving while people are still on the tarmac," he added.

Borrell told AFP news agency that he had complained to the Americans that their security at Kabul airport was hampering attempts by Afghans who worked for European countries to enter.

Image source, MOD

As we mentioned earlier, former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair has described the US withdrawal from Afghanistan as "tragic, dangerous, and unnecessary".

In his first statement since the fall of Kabul to the Taliban last Sunday, he said the decision had been made "in obedience to an imbecilic slogan about ending 'the forever wars'" - referring to a phrase used by US President Joe Biden during his election campaign.

Blair argued that the international military commitment in Afghanistan had changed, with troop numbers having "declined to a minimum" and no allied soldiers killed in combat in 18 months.

"We didn't need to do it. We chose to do it," he wrote of the withdrawal.

Blair, who led the UK when it invaded the country alongside the US after the 9/11 attacks in 2001, said the exit of allied troops would have Jihadist groups "cheering".

He also said that Britain had a "moral obligation" to stay in Afghanistan until "all those who need to be are evacuated".

President Biden has pledged to evacuate any US citizens who want to leave Afghanistan, but has described the operation as one of the "most difficult airlifts in history".

Read more here

Image source, US Air Mobility Command/ Twitter

An Afghan woman has given birth on board a US evacuation aircraft in Germany.

In a thread posted on Twitter on Sunday, the US Air Mobility Command said the mother was travelling with her family from the Middle East to the Ramstein Air Base in Germany when she went into labour.

After she began experiencing complications, the aircraft commander "decided to descend in altitude to increase air pressure in the aircraft, which helped stabilize and save the mother's life".

Once the plane landed, US military medics came aboard and delivered the child.

Both mother and baby are well and have been taken to a nearby medical facility.

Image source, Reuters

Seven Afghan civilians have died in the crowds outside Kabul airport, as people desperately try to flee the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, the UK's Ministry of Defence (MoD) has said.

"Conditions on the ground remain extremely challenging but we are doing everything we can to manage the situation as safely and securely as possible," a spokesperson said in a statement.

There have been chaotic scenes outside Kabul airport as thousands of Afghans have desperately tried to escape and governments have scrambled to evacuate their citizens and eligible Afghan colleagues.

About 4,500 US troops are in temporary control of Hamid Karzai International Airport, with some 900 British soldiers also on patrol at the site as part of efforts to secure the evacuation flights.

Taliban militants have been manning checkpoints around the perimeter of the airport and blocking Afghans without travel documents from entering.

Image source, Reuters

Thank you for joining our live coverage. We'll be bringing you all the latest developments from Afghanistan.

Here are the latest headlines:

• It's been one week since the Taliban took control of the whole country
• Thousands of people continue to crowd around Kabul airport in sweltering heat, desperate to leave on evacuation flights
• Seven Afghan civilians have died in the crowds, the UK's Ministry of Defence said on Sunday
• US defence officials have warned of possible attacks at the airport by militants linked to a local offshoot of the Islamic State (IS) group, who oppose the Taliban, although IS has made no public threat
• The US has told its citizens not to go to Kabul airport unless instructed to do so, for their own safety
• There are growing concerns over the 31 August deadline for the US to withdraw its troops, with the EU's foreign policy chief warning that it will be "impossible" to evacuate all Afghans with travel permits by then
• Government offices, including the passport department, and banks remain closed in Kabul, according to local media

• Former US President Donald Trump has described the withdrawal as an "astonishing display of gross incompetence". Mr Trump signed the peace deal with the Taliban last year
• Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair has said the situation is "tragic, dangerous, and unnecessary". Mr Blair led the UK when it invaded Afghanistan alongside the US in 2001