Prime Minister Boris Johnson praised the “colossal exertions” of the UK armed forces in rescuing British and Afghan citizens from Afghanistan, as some of the last UK military personnel to leave the country arrived in Oxfordshire on Sunday morning.
The soldiers and diplomats arrived amid an intense row about the evacuation effort, which the British government said had rescued 15,000 people in two weeks.
Vice-Admiral Sir Ben Key, chief of joint operations, said the military would have preferred to have had more time to bring more people out. The operation brought to the UK about 5,000 British nationals and 8,000 Afghans who had worked for the UK, as well as some other especially vulnerable people. However, the operation failed to rescue at least 1,000 people who were seeking to flee to the UK.