British officials told Afghans to go to an entrance of Kabul Airport hours before a suicide bomber struck killing almost 200 people including two Britons and 13 US marines, leaked emails have revealed today.
An Afghan interpreter was saved because he was told by the UK authorities to head to the Abbey Gate but decided it was 'madness to go there' given warnings of an imminent terrorist attack.
The revelation emerged as the Special Relationship came under renewed strain and Whitehall sources accused the Pentagon of trying to 'shift the blame' from Washington and London over the Kabul airport terror attack.
US leaks suggesting that the airport's gate was left open at the time of the deadly bomb attack to help the British evacuation. The claim angered ministers, who said they would have been happy for the gate to be closed as the scale of the terror threat became clear.
Thousands of people gathered in the area on Thursday before the blast killed almost 200 and maimed hundreds. In the chaotic aftermath panicked US troops have been accused of adding to the death toll by firing on the terrified survivors running at them. Two British citizens, Musa Popal and Mohamed Niazi were also killed, along with Mr Niazi’s wife and two daughters.
And emails seen by BBC's Newsnight show that despite security services warning an attack on airport was imminent, the British embassy told people in writing to 'use the Abbey Gate [near] to the Baron Hotel'. Another email asking if an Afghan interpreter was in the right place said: 'Please advise that you are at the correct gate? Abbey Gate.'
He said today: 'If I had followed their advice, I would be no more. I said I won't because I don't feel safe as the situation was getting worse. It would be madness to go there and that saved my life. It was our own judgement that saved our lives.'
Initially the Pentagon said that there had been two suicide attacks, including at the Baron Hotel where the British were processing people. The following day the US changed its account and confirmed there had been only one, blaming 'garbled' intelligence from the scene
The brother of British Afghan Muhammad Niazi (pictured) who was killed following a suicide bomb attack on Kabul airport says he was shot dead by panicked western troops. Muhammad's youngest child and eldest daughter (pictured but not named) are still believed to be missing
Defense Sec. Lloyd Austin warned of a potential 'mass casualty event' just 24 hours before a suicide bomber set off a bomb that killed 13 U.S. troops and more than 200 Afghans last week. Leaked notes on calls between Defense officials reveal struggles to protect the Kabul airport
Dominic Raab yesterday hit back at the Pentagon after they tried to shift the blame for the high death toll from last week's suicide attack in Kabul on to the UK.
With the 'special relationship' under further strain, Britain's Foreign Secretary insisted it is 'simply not true' to suggest UK pushed to keep Kabul airport gate open against the wishes of their US allies.
And he revealed that Britain had already moved its own staff from a nearby hotel because of the growing threat of a terror attack.
Mr Raab told Sky News: 'We co-ordinated very closely with the US, in particular around the Isis-K threat which we anticipated, although tragically were not able to prevent, but it is certainly right to say we got our civilians out of the processing centre by Abbey Gate, but it is just not true to suggest that other than securing our civilians inside the airport that we were pushing to leave the gate open.
'In fact, and let me just be clear about this, we were issuing changes of travel advice before the bomb attack took place and saying to people in the crowd, about which I was particularly concerned, that certainly UK nationals and anyone else should leave because of the risk.'
Former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith also questioned the American account, telling LBC today: 'If the American military were serious about shutting the gates they would have shut the gates'.
A senior British diplomatic source hit back at the US's accusations, pointing out that a number of foreign ministers at a G7 meeting yesterday 'heaped praise' on the UK's actions at the airport during the evacuation. One source told The Times: 'We understood the severity of the situation; we changed the travel advice. If they had closed Abbey Gate we would have been totally supportive.'
Defence select committee chairman Tobias Ellwood told the Telegraph: 'It does not add up. If the U.S. was anticipating a mass casualty event why did they still continue processing themselves? There is an underlying current of blame which is unhelpful. It's a distraction from the main effort of what is happening on the ground'.
Colonel Richard Kemp, a former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, said: 'No blame should be put on the British here and I do not believe the evidence as presented goes anywhere near any level of UK culpability. The US had very good intelligence on this attack. One could ask why they did not conduct a pre-emptive strike to neutralise the threat? If the suicide bomber had not detonated his device at Abbey Gate it would have been somewhere else close by.'
It comes as the last US flights left Kabul just after midnight local time last night – 23 hours inside the deadline for international troops to leave. The Taliban said they were now in control of the airport.
Leaked transcripts from top-secret US calls show that military chiefs were desperate to close a gate at Kabul airport hours before it was hit by an Isis-K suicide bomber last Thursday. But they say British forces wanted it kept open so they could continue evacuating Afghans.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told top Pentagon leaders to prepare for a potential 'mass casualty event' 24 hours before the Kabul suicide attack and said Britain wanted to keep the airport gate at the center of the blast open for longer to allow more evacuees through, internal DOD documents reveal.
The documents, which the Pentagon condemned as a leak of
