Inside Politics: Biden vows to hunt down bombers

Joe Biden wanted to take US forces out of Afghanistan, but has somehow found himself drawing up fresh plans to wage war in the 'Graveyard of Empires'. Strikes on ISIS-K targets would be far from a full scale invasion or occupation, but this is certainly not what the president had in mind when he talked of bringing the troops home. Boris Johnson meanwhile says the UK's evacuation operation is going as planned.

Inside the bubble

Our political correspondent Ashley Cowburn on what to look out for today:

Defence secretary Ben Wallace is doing the media round to discuss the situation in Afghanistan, in the wake of yesterday's attack. Expect him to be asked how on earth the British embassy in Kabul failed to shred the contact details of Afghans who had been working there. 

Daily briefing

DESPICABLE THEE: Boris Johnson has confirmed that the UK evacuation operation at Kabul airport will continue despite Wednesday's double suicide bomb attack there. Speaking after a meeting of the emergency Cobra committee the prime minister denounced the attack as “despicable” but insisted UK forces would not cut short their mission in response. He said the 1,000-strong UK military detachment in Kabul would be working “flat out” to process people but that the "overwhelming majority" of those approved for airlift had now left Afghanistan, with 15,000 evacuated since 13 August. 

SPECIAL K: On the other side of the Atlantic Joe Biden promised action against the perpetrators of the attack, which killed at least 60 people including 12 US military personnel. Speaking late UK time on Thursday the president said America would "not be intimidated", adding: “We will not forgive. We will not forget. We will hunt you down and make you pay”. Biden said he had asked his commanders to develop battle plans to strike ISIS-K targets in Afghanistan, and that he would authorise additional force if required.  

SHREDDING CREDIBILITY: It's not just Joe Biden for whom the situation is turning into a deadly debacle. It's been revealed that documents with contact details of Afghan workers who helped the UK were left scattered all over the British embassy compound in Kabul. Paperwork identifying seven Afghans was found by reporters as Taliban fighters patrolled the embassy after a shredding operation failed. The FCDO says the people in question have been brought to safety.

A LITTLE HELP: Back in Westminster, new research by the Resolution Foundation shows that a decades-long fall in the proportion of people receiving benefits was partially reversed during the coronavirus pandemic. This has been driven by a sharp rise in the number of younger people claiming social security, a figure which was up by two thirds in a year. Karl Handscomb, senior economist at the Foundation, said 16-24s have "traditionally been the least likely to claim benefits" and that this rise "reflects that fact that they have been by far the hardest hit by the Covid economic crisis".

CHANGING ROOMS: The Conservative party has finally revealed the complex process used to pay for lavish renovations at Boris Johnson's Downing Street flat. Labour accused the prime minister of being "allergic to the truth" after it emerged that a Tory donor had provided more than £52,000 to cover costs, according to party accounts published on Thursday. Tory HQ said it initially provided a “bridging loan” of £52,802 to cover the works after being invoiced by the Cabinet Office last June. The party was then “reimbursed in full” by Lord Brownlow last October, before Mr Johnson “settled the costs” incurred by the donor in March 2021 – but only after details had emerged in the press in February.

BLAME IT ON THE WEATHERMAN: Meanwhile a hotelier and meteorologist in Crete both say they are baffled by Dominic Raab’s claim that he couldn’t have been paddleboarding on holiday while Kabul fell because the sea was “closed”. The locals said there were no "significant weather phenomenon" in the area at the time and that the beaches around where the foreign secretary was staying had been open all summer. Mr Raab has said that, with the benefit of hindsight, he would not have gone on holiday during the unfolding Afghanistan crisis.

On the record

“They are not going to last long, they are not able to break our will.”

Amrullah Saleh, vice president of the ousted Afghan government, gives his view on the Taliban's chances.

From the Twitterati

“You gave them back Afghanistan

You left them weapons

You abandoned air supremacy 

You gave up most of our intelligence sources 

They don’t believe you Mr President, they certainly don’t fear you”

Tim Montgomerie is not buying Joe Biden's warnings…

“Biden is right about one thing- one of the reasons there have been no casualties for such a long time is the ceasefire which would have ended if Biden had reneged on the deal and stayed.”

…while Lewis Goodall points out the difficulties of the situation.

Essential reading

Andrew Woodcock, The Independent: Politicians forget voters' love for animals at their peril

Mary Dejevsky, The Independent: The tragedy unfolding in Afghanistan shows the futility of Nato

Ed McNally, Jacobin: Keir Starmer’s attacks on Labour’s Left are a sign of weakness, not strength

Simon Fletcher, The Guardian: Sharon Graham’s victory puts to bed the Labour right’s hopes of winning Unite 

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