The first rescue mission carrying Afghan evacuees and stranded Brits has landed safely in the UK after escaping the clutches of the Taliban, say reports.
An RAF Airbus KC2 Voyager aircraft landed at RAF Brize Norton, Oxfordshire, on Tuesday, after a dramatic escape from Kabul.
The plane, said to be carrying Brit personnel and Afghan interpreters is one of a number of flights expected to land in the next few days as evacuation efforts continue.
Meanwhile, British forces are scrambling to evacuate another 1,000 UK nationals and Afghan refugees from Kabul today.
Armed Forces chief General Sir Nick Carter said the next 24 hours were "critical".
In horrifying scenes on Monday crowds of Afghans desperate to flee the Taliban were filmed chasing down jets along the runway with some clinging to the wheels of a US military plane.
Distressing video showed desperate stowaways plunging to their deaths from a plane as it left Kabul.
The Mail Online reports that trapped Afghan translators claimed militant gunmen wanted to kill them before they could board RAF mercy flights.
Several interpreters said they were hiding with their young families near to the airfield in Kabul, but couldn't get to safety because of Taliban checkpoints.
At least 12 military flights were said to have taken off from Kabul on Tuesday, including three UK planes.
And General Carter Chief of the Defence Staff, suggested the rescue operation from Hamid Karzai International Airport was dependent on "collaboration" with the Taliban.
"We hope to get around 1,000 people out today and we've got about seven aircraft going in," he told the BBC's Radio 4 Today programme.
"There are a lot of challenges on the ground, not least because there are a lot of desperate people trying to get to the airport.
"Subject to the situation remaining calm which the Taliban are working hard to achieve alongside us then the system will work, we believe."
Despite hopes the UK would extract more than 1,000 people per day, numbers have so far fallen short. About 150 Brit nationals came out on Sunday, along with 289 Afghan nationals over the last week.
Mr Raab said on Tuesday a further 350 British and Afghan nationals were set to be evacuated “over the next 24 hours”.
The Times reported that Brit troops could be forced to pull out of Afghanistan before the evacuation is complete because the Taliban is now in control of security.
Vice Admiral Ben Key, who is in charge of the evacuation effort as chief of joint operations, warned that the Taliban “may remove their consent” at any time for them to stay, leaving Brits stranded.
He said there had been “considerably greater stability” at Kabul’s Hamid Karzai airport yesterday, allowing the RAF to start airlifting hundreds of people out of the country, but said as many as 6,000 people still remained.
Meanwhile, ministers have announced plans to help Afghans fleeing the Taliban by giving some 20,000 refugees sanctuary in the UK over the coming years.
But the Home Office was accused of failing to act quickly enough after it revealed that only 5,000 Afghans facing persecution would be relocated in the first year.
It will leave thousands of vulnerable people at risk of violent recrimination.
The 20,000 is in addition to 5,000 Afghans – whose lives are in danger because they helped the UK – who are coming under an existing scheme. About 2,000 of them are already here.
Refugee groups, opposition parties and Conservatives have criticised the Government for failing to grasp the urgency of the situation for hundreds of thousands of people in Afghanistan after the Taliban retook the capital Kabul.
