The UK's evacuation of Afghanistan is now "down to hours not weeks", the Defence Secretary has warned as he crushed hopes of a major extension to the August 31 deadline.
Boris Johnson will tomorrow ask President Joe Biden to keep US troops in Kabul Airport for longer than the end of the month to allow allies to rescue more people from the Taliban.
But Mr Biden has already said he "hopes" he won't have to extend and the Taliban have claimed the date is a "red line".
And today Defence Secretary Ben Wallace admitted "the security situation is precarious", as the Taliban now "have a vote" on whether to extend the deadline.
Mr Wallace said the Kabul evacuation effort is "down to hours now, not weeks" as he conceded the UK's involvement will end when the US leaves.
Speaking to reporters in Fort George, near Inverness, he said: "The Prime Minister is, obviously at the G7, going to try and raise the prospect of seeing if the United States will extend.
"It's really important for people to understand the United States have over 6,000 people in Kabul airport and when they withdraw that will take away the framework ... and we will have to go as well.
"I don't think there is any likelihood of staying on after the United States. If their timetable extends even by a day or two, that will give us a day or two more to evacuate people.
"Because we are really down to hours now, not weeks, and we have to make sure we exploit every minute to get people out."
It comes after Britain rescued 1,821 people from Afghanistan in the last 24 hours on eight RAF mercy flights.
Armed Forces Minister James Heappey said the RAF expects to have a further 9 flights over the next 24 hours to extract thousands more from Kabul against the clock.
But with more than 4,000 planned evacuees to the UK still stuck in Kabul and chaotic, deadly scenes outside the airport gates, Britain will beg US President Joe Biden to extend the deadline for the airlift.
Boris Johnson is expected to use an emergency G7 meeting tomorrow to push Mr Biden to extend the cut-off date of next Tuesday 31 August.
The hardline Islamist Taliban took back Afghanistan, undoing a 20-year UK and US military campaign, while Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab was on holiday.
"Whether or not the US can be persuaded to stay is a matter for the Prime Minister tomorrow in the G7 meeting," Mr Heappey told Sky on Monday.
"This isn’t just a decision that gets taken in Washington, the Taliban get a vote on this as well, and I think it’s far from certain the Taliban are going to be willing to allow the international community to extend beyond the end of the month."
Mr Heappey said Britain's focus is on 1,800 remaining UK passport holders and 2,275 remaining Afghans eligible under the Afghan relocations and assistance policy (ARAP) - designed to evacuate translators and other staff. It's thought ARAP has been extended to include the Chevening scholars.
“There are thousands more who we would like to get out if there is the time or the capacity,” he told Sky News. “We will get out as many as we possibly can.
“But we’ve been clear throughout that there is a hard reality that we won’t be able to get out everybody that we want to.”
Mr Heappey said 6,631 people have been extracted in the last week, but the effort was “not possible” without American help.
Mr Heappey suggested terrorists are trying to use the chaos at Kabul Airport to get on flights to Britain - saying "right now" there are people trying to board planes to "cause us harm".
He did not use the word terrorists - but responded in the context of fears a suicide bomber could attack near Kabul Airport.
And it comes after the Mirror reported intelligence agencies are warning of an ISIS infiltration in the capital.
Asked if there could be a suicide bomber in the vicinity of the airport, Mr Heappey told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "Absolutely and that is why - we would love to be able to just open the gates and let people in and even faster flow.
“But there are people right now in Kabul trying to get onto British flights that we have identified in our checks as being on the UK no fly list.
“So the checks that are being done are entirely necessary because there are people trying to take advantage of this process to get into the UK to cause us harm.
“Secondly, there is a real threat that our troops are facing and we have to therefore execute this as a military mission, at the same time as being as humane as possible.”
