The first flight of evacuated personnel landed at RAF Brize Norton in the UK from Kabul late last night.

The flight consisted of British Embassy staff and British citizens, say the Ministry of Defence.

As part of Operation PITTING, the UK Armed Forces are enabling the evacuation of British personnel from Afghanistan.

“On Sunday 16th August the first flight of evacuated personnel arrived at RAF Brize Norton in the UK. The flight constituted of British Embassy staff and British Nationals.
British forces from 16 Air Assault Brigade arrived in the Afghan capital over the weekend on Op PITTING to support the evacuation of British Nationals and former British staff eligible for relocation under the Afghan Relocation and Assistance Policy (ARAP).”

British transport aircraft including four C-17s, one A400M, one C-130 and three Voyagers were involved in evacuation efforts.

600 British military personnel had deployed to Afghanistan on a short term basis to assist British nationals to leave.

The UK Government say that UK troops were there provide force protection and logistical support for the relocation of British nationals where required and assist with the acceleration of the ‘Afghan Relocation and Assistance Policy’, you can read more about this below.

UK sending 600 troops to Afghanistan to evacuate citizens

 

George Allison
George Allison
George has a degree in Cyber Security from Glasgow Caledonian University and has a keen interest in naval and cyber security matters and has appeared on national radio and television to discuss current events. George is on Twitter at @geoallison
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35 COMMENTS

  1. Desperate stuff to be seen on Twitter.

    Apache is being used to clear the area around runway by flying low or in the hover to clear hundreds of people away from the runway, as they are climbing on moving C17s taxying to depart.

    Some can be seen falling to their deaths after falling from the wings or undercarriages.

    • Mate, its a complete shambles! Never thought I’d say this, but, thank heaven that some part of the Trump deal is still working! Either that or we are paying big bucks so we can evacuate our people!
      Could you imagine the disaster if the entire airport was shut and/or this evacuation was being contested by the Taliban?
      Its going to take some logistical effort to get all those people(entitled?) and that kit out as it is.
      The fallout from this will be interesting now that the blame game has started!

      • Who provides overwatch for the last plane to go? And then how do they get out?

        I assume the helicopters are all loaded on C17.

        Maybe Ospreys and USMC with RPAV’s and USN fighters overhead?

        Takes one renegade Taliban with one of the lost Manpads to have a go and get lucky past the countermeasures.

        I noted the DS Wallace at least has some humanity in him. Was visibly emotional on TV interview earlier. Crocodile tears? Does not seem that way at all.

        I’m always impressed with him as DS.

        Keep our C130’s.
        Get proper AAR on Chinook and Merlin.
        Fit our Voyagers to refuel Wedgetail, Poseidon, RC135, and all.

        This mess has shown sometimes our assets will not have the range.

        • Wouldn’t disagree with any of that Daniele, I would put AAR on our Atlas flt too (AT contract allowing). Although are the Voyagers not just doing the UK shuttle run from Dubai to Brize with people?
          I watched his interview on TV this morning, thought it was genuine and he came across well. He gets some bad press at times, not sure it’s deserved though!
          The last few aircraft to leave will be interesting as you say.
          This has certainly shown up some shortcomings in our OC with some of our assets, it will certainly highlight the dance deficiency with our F35 flt, show just how vital the proposed AAR drone capability is going to be, never mind the rest that you allude to!

        • Agree mate. Saw that interview too, felt for the guy. Many serving and ex serving will understand how he feels. So many people have been affected by Afghanistan. The injuries, the mental scares. The families eager for young men & women to come home safely during countless deployments. Some lovely people in Afghanistan despite the stereotypes. Some real characters. 20 years for sweet FA. I only hope the Taliban have learnt their own lessons from the past and don’t return to the dark age’s. If they want to stay in control, they will have to accept the world has moved on for many young Afghans, particularly women. Sometimes it feels like the world is going backwards, with little progression for mankind.

        • MPs and Twitter folks asking why HMS Queen Elizabeth isn’t helping and we obviously know why, But imagine we had Ospreys onboard and our A400s had A2A capability to refuel them..

          Can we add that to your shopping list please

    • Horrendous Daniele, history repeats itself doesn’t it, the same in Danang in 75 as people fell from undercarriage into the sea….

      I see Blair has still kept his massive gob shut for once … He’s one of the architects of this mass of human misery.

      God help all the women of Afghanistan, the female Afghan head of education defiantly remained at her desk yesterday, what an incredibly brave woman …. I doubt she lived to see the sun rise this morning. What an utter bloody mess…

      • To be fair John, and I can’t stand the man, we were right imo to go in and sort AQ and OBL. Unfortunately we seem to have lost our way a bit since then. Call it mission creep, call it what you will, if we had left soon after without having had to put all those boots on the ground, and followed a more diplomatic approach, who knows it might have been different. It’s no good second guessing , it is what it is and we will need to suck it up and move forward. But yes a bloody mess it is.

        • Absolutely, we are where we are.

          I absolutely blame Blair and Bush junior for the decision to dig in and play nation building in Afghanistan. It was totally doomed from the very start, a propped up joke of a Government and systems of state, that couldn’t have stood on its own two feet if we stayed 100 years..

        • Shouldn’t have invaded them in the first place. We should have learned from Russia’s disaster there. But no. We always think things will be different because everyone wants to be free and live in a democracy. Unfortunately that isn’t always true.

          • Problem is and always has been in Afghanistan and Iraq is that the west doesn’t want to be seen to occupy them but doesn’t like the governments who win through. Always was going to be a disaster since the withdrawal announcement.

  4. I’m sure the US intel aircraft, ect so the mass convoys of Taliban heading towards Kabul but Biden or his Defense Secretary told them not to attack them. Just give them free passage. A total disgrace.

  5. No doubt we will get an influx of cultural enrichment, no go zones and censorship laws like after our last dose of intervention.

    • Bit of a strongly worded post, but it’s fair to bring up concerns around who is coming into the country, how they will be vetted, where they will live etc.
      It’s such a shame, if we had sensible levels of immigration people would be 100% on board with this, as morally I personally believe it’s the right thing to do. Issue is, we have serious problems with immigration in this country, which no MP wants to deal with, serious problems with lack of social integration and a serious problem with Islamic extremism.
      All that said, I’m still jolly glad we are helping get people out of the country who helped us (at risk to themselves) when we were there. I just wish we hadn’t had around 20 years of stupid levels of immigration previously.

  7. What a WASTE of time, energy, money, and lives, the Afghanistan debacle will forever haunt us, what also happens in Saigon bring those BITTER memories, America never learns on its failures, BETTER for us STOP dipping our fingers in other people’s war, many American youths sacrificed their limbs and life to change the attitude of these people. It’s time for us to help only those people who want to HELP themselves, we cannot change the perception of other people’s FANATICAL minds towards religion, it is just nonsense…

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