UK to send up to 600 troops to Afghanistan to help evacuate Britons as Taliban closes in on Kabul

About 600 UK troops are to be sent to Afghanistan to assist British nationals to leave, the government has announced.

It comes as the Taliban has seized the cities of Ghazni and Herat – and claimed the capture of the country’s second-largest city Kandahar.

Military personnel will provide protection and help relocate UK nationals, Afghan staff and interpreters.

Last week the Foreign Office advised all British nationals to leave.

It is estimated that about 4,000 British citizens are still in the country.

Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said the security of British nationals, military personnel and former Afghan staff was the government’s first priority and that it “must do everything we can to ensure their safety”.

Mr Wallace said deployment of troops, who will be arriving in the coming days, was a “pre-planned phase” and was to “enable the next step of leaving”.

But the Ministry of Defense said the additional deployment was “in light of the increasing violence and rapidly deteriorating security environment in the country”.

The UK’s ambassador to Afghanistan, Sir Laurie Bristow, will continue to lead a small team in Afghanistan which will relocate within Kabul to a more secure location, the MoD said.

As well as British nationals, the embassy will help the UK’s Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (ARAP), which has already supported more than 3,100 former Afghan staff and their families to move to the UK, including 1,800 in the last few weeks, the MoD said.

The US has also said it is sending 3,000 military troops to the airport in Kabul to help evacuate a “significant” amount of embassy staff on special flights.