that afghanistan doesn t become a terrorist safe haven once again. the british prime minister borisjohnson says he absolutely has confidence in the foreign secretary, dominic raab, who s come underfire for his handling of the crisis in afghanistan. he failed to call his afghan counterpart to discuss evacuations, after being advised to do so by officials. mr raab said his priority, at the time, had been dealing with security issues, at kabul airport. here s our political correspondent alex forsyth. arriving in a place of safety, this past week has been a scramble to evacuate brits and afghans who worked with them, planes drafted in to get people out, but could more have been done? the foreign secretary, seen heading to downing street yesterday, has been under pressure. are you going to resign, mr raab? no. ..for not calling his afghan counterpart last week about translators who d helped foreign forces. tonight, the prime minister said.
to a junior minister instead. labour said he should be sacked or quit. the idea that the foreign secretary would not pick up the phone as the taliban were advancing and standing at the gates of kabul to see what we could do to help and prevent afghanistan descending into a base for terror again seems to me to be extraordinary. but today mr raab shrugged off calls to go. are you going to resign, mr raab? no. that was a no and a cabinet colleague came to mr raab s defence. the only problem last week was not a phone call to an afghan government that was melting away and had almost, or don t have any leverage. the number one challenge at the end of last week was whether the airport would continue to fly out, allow planes to fly out, and those people that we were getting out, would they be allowed to get out. that was the number one call, the only thing that mattered. dominic raab insists he was working hard on holiday, getting back to britain in the early hours of monday, after the taliban
well we can speak now to marie clarke, who s vice president of the global programme for women for women international the women s rights group. she joins us live from washington. i don t know if you heard that statement of a woman trying to escape and get to the airport but because she was unaccompanied she was sent back. what is the future for women in kabul and afghanistan? it is something where a lot of the women we work with in afghanistan throughout the country and especially our afghan staff are asking and we have also experienced that there can be a real distance between the rhetoric of the taliban saying they re going to continue to support women s rights and access to education and to work and the reality on the ground although the taliban has shown they are not a
he and his family were flown out of afghanistan two days ago by the raf and are now quarantining in manchester. yes, i feel good, we are safe. we will start back from scratch in the uk. his wife isn t a dual national. she was told to stay behind and then struggled to get into the airport. the situation is very bad because we were literally inside the compound, we could see the fighting, the shooting. she was crying. when we met her again in that, there was one of the officers, he was a british officer, he was actually.he cried too. how was the situation on the plane for everyone? the situation was chaotic. the plane was completely full. one of my children was sitting on the floor. with his work for coalition forces, he feared for his life. we are the lucky ones.
this is bbc news with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. taliban squads are said to be hunting door to door for collaborators as some at kabul airport hand over their children to us marines, to at least get them, on flights to freedom. there are reports that the taliban have seized us military biometrics devices possibly aiding in the identification of afghans who assisted coalition forces. for the first time ever, the us government declares a water shortage on the colorado river a life source to millions in the southwest. plus does the major pullout from afghanistan mark the end of the so called american era? we ll discuss later in the show. a united nations report, which the bbc has seen, says the taliban in afghanistan are intensifying their hunt for all