Afghan soldiers prepare for last stand and UK troops head to Kabul

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

50% : As Western embassies prepare to send in troops to help evacuate staff, the United Nations said its 320 staff members would remain.
46% : On Thursday, the group took of Kandahar and Herat, marking the biggest prizes yet for the Taliban, who have taken 12 of Afghanistan's 34 provincial capitals as part of a week-long blitz 'The city looks like a front line, a ghost town,' provincial council member Ghulam Habib Hashimi said of Kandahar via telephone from Herat, a city of about 600,000 people near the border with Iran.
34% : The United Nations begged on Friday for neighbouring countries to keep their borders open to allow people to escape the Taliban, and U.N. agencies warned of a growing humanitarian catastrophe amid spreading hunger.

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