UK foreign minister says intelligence was Afghan capital would not fall this year

Britain's foreign minister Dominic Raab said the intelligence assessment was that it was unlikely Kabul would fall this year as he defended Britain's withdrawal from Afghanistan after the Taliban swept across the country much more quickly.

"The central assessment that we were operating to... is that the most likely, the central proposition was that, given the troop withdrawal by the end of August, you would see a steady deterioration from that point, and that it was unlikely Kabul would fall this year," Raab told an emergency session of the foreign affairs select committee.

"That doesn't mean we didn't do contingency planning or game-out or test the other propositions. And just to be clear, that's something that was widely shared - that view - amongst NATO allies."