British PM says UK’s Afghanistan evacuations to continue despite explosions at airport

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Thursday that the United Kingdom’s evacuation flights out of Afghanistan would continue despite the bombing at the Kabul airport, which killed dozens including 12 U.S. service members.

Johnson also acknowledged that the possibility of a terrorist attack was one that government officials were aware of and ready for.

“And look, I want to stress that this threat of a terrorist attack is one of the constraints that we’ve been operating under in Operation PITTING, in the big extraction that’s been – that’s been going on,” Johnson said in a video that was tweeted Thursday.

I utterly condemn the barbaric terrorist attack in Kabul in which Afghans and members of the US military lost their lives.

The threat of terrorist attack is one of the constraints we’ve been operating under, but our evacuation effort continues with over 12,000 extracted so far. pic.twitter.com/DXCFPj9KQC

— Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) August 26, 2021

“And we’ve been ready for it. We’ve been prepared for it. And I want to stress that we’re going to continue with that operation. And we’re now coming towards the end of it, to the very end of it, in any event and we’ve already extracted the overwhelming majority of those under both the schemes, the eligible persons, the U.K. persons … plus the Afghans, the interpreters and others,” Johnson continued. 

The U.S. has been trying to hasten its evacuation flights ahead of a Tuesday deadline when all troops must be withdrawn, an operation that has been mired in hours-long pause last week after a Qatar processing facility became overwhelmed in addition to added security concerns given Thursday’s explosions.