Final UK evacuation flight leaves Kabul; troops head home

By JILL LAWLESS
Associated Press

LONDON (AP) — British troops have left Kabul, ending the U.K.’s evacuation operation, and its 20-year military involvement in Afghanistan. The U.K. government said about 1,000 troops who have been running an airlift of British nationals and Afghan civilians  departed on military planes from Kabul airport on Saturday, hours after the final evacuation flight. Most countries apart from the United States has already left. Prime Minister Boris Johnson praised the “heroic” evacuation effort, even as the government acknowledged some Afghan civilians had been left behind. Britain says it has evacuated more than 15,000 people from Kabul in the past two weeks But the U.K.’s top military officer acknowledged “we haven’t been able to bring everybody out.”