MAKE IT ORDERLY; THERE'S NO RUSH:

"America, with all its power and facilities... has failed to bring order to the airport. There is peace and calm all over the country, but there is chaos only at Kabul airport," Taliban official Amir Khan Mutaqi said.

Britain's defence ministry said Sunday seven people had died in the crowds, without giving further details.

A journalist, who was among a group of other media workers and academics lucky enough to get to the airport on Sunday for a flight, described desperate scenes of people surrounding their bus on the way in.

"They were showing us their passports and shouting 'take us with you... please take us with you'," the journalist told AFP.

"The Taliban fighter in the truck ahead of us had to shoot in the air to make them go away."

Britain's Sky News on Saturday aired footage of at least three bodies covered in white tarpaulin outside the airport. It was not clear how they had died.

Reporter Stuart Ramsay, who was at the airport, called the deaths "inevitable" and said people were being "crushed", while others were "dehydrated and terrified".

The footage was the latest imagery of utter despair, after video of a baby being lifted over a wall at the airport and horror scenes of people hanging onto departing planes.

'Impossible' deadline

The United States, which has thousands of troops trying to secure the airport, has set a deadline to complete the evacuations by 31 August.

But there are up to 15,000 Americans and 50,000 to 60,000 Afghan allies who need to be evacuated, according to the Biden administration.

The Taliban fired in the air and used batons to make people line up in orderly queues outside Kabul airport on Sunday, witnesses said, a day after seven people were killed in a crush at the gates.

On Sunday, there were no major injuries as gunmen beat back the crowds and long lines of people were being formed, the witnesses said.

Britain's defence ministry said seven Afghans were killed in the crush around the airport on Saturday as thousands of people desperately tried to get a flight out, a week after the Islamist militant group took control of the country.

Sky News showed footage of soldiers standing on a wall on Saturday attempting to pull the injured out from the crush and spraying people with a hose to prevent them from getting dehydrated.

"Conditions on the ground remain extremely challenging but we are doing everything we can to manage the situation as safely and securely as possible," the ministry said in a statement.

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