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Afghanistan News LIVE Updates: With just one day left for the August 31 deadline to end, US forces were in the final phase of pulling out of Kabul as just over 1,000 civilians remained at the airport on Sunday to be flown out before the troops finally leave. The Taliban told Reuters that they had engineers and technicians ready to take charge of the Kabul airport. On Sunday, a US drone strike struck a vehicle carrying “multiple suicide bombers” from Afghanistan’s Islamic State affiliate ISKP before they could target the ongoing evacuation at Kabul airport. In a separate incident, a rocket hit a residential house in the Gulai area of Khajeh Baghra near the airport in Kabul's 11th security district, killing six people, including a child. Stay tuned for LIVE updates on the Taliban in Afghanistan.
The Taliban on Saturday claimed that their fighters have entered the Panjshir Valley from several directions without clashes, but the Popular Resistance Front denied the claims. Panjshir is the only Afghanistan province that has not yet fallen to the insurgent group. Meanwhile, the last British flight evacuating civilians from Afghanistan left Kabul on Saturday, ending the UK's evacuation operation and its 20-year military involvement in Afghanistan. The UK has airlifted almost 15,000 Afghan and British citizens in the two weeks since the Taliban took control. With the August 31 deadline looming, the US military has also begun its final withdrawal from Afghanistan in the closing stages of a frantic airlift of Americans, Afghans and others desperate to escape Taliban rule before the evacuation shuts down.
Following the deadly bombing in Kabul on August 26, the US military retaliated by conducting a drone strike in Nangahar killing an ISIS-K terrorist involved in planning attacks.
Two days after the deadly bombings outside Kabul airport that killed over 100 people and left dozens injured, the Pentagon said the attack was carried out by one suicide bomber. The White House also warned of more possible attacks and the National Security team met US President Joe Biden and advised that there is "an ongoing and acute threat from ISIS-K". The US continued to press on into the final days of the airlift from Afghanistan amid tighter security. Meanwhile, with the deteriorating conditions in the Afghanistan, up to half a million Afghans could flee the crisis in their homeland, UNHCR said, appealing to all neighbouring countries to keep their borders open for those seeking safety.