Pen Farthing has been forced to abandon the 200 cats and dogs he was rescuing in Afghanistan. The hero soldier was <a href="https://vt.co/news/hero-soldier-gets-official-approval-to-rescue-200-dogs-and-cats-from-kabul-amid-taliban-takeover">evacuating the animals on a flight approved by Boris Johnson</a>, but after he was unable to board, he took to Twitter to blame President Joe Biden for the rule change which prevented the animals' rescue. The former Royal Marine was also planning to evacuate 68 members of staff from the animal rights organization <a href="https://www.nowzad.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Nowzad</a>, <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9925167/Ex-Royal-Marine-Pen-Farthing-able-airlift-staff-200-animals-Kabul.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Daily Mail</a> reports. Taking to Twitter to reveal the heartbreaking news on August 27, Farthing wrote: "The whole team; dogs/cats were safely 300m inside the airport perimeter. "We were turned away as @POTUS had changed paperwork rules just 2 hours earlier. Went through hell to get there & we were turned away into the chaos of those devastating explosions." [[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/PenFarthing/status/1431109185207521280]] Prior to announcing that the operation had been unsuccessful, Farthing told <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-58354229">BBC News</a> that "all hell broke loose" as he tried to escape the airport following yesterday's attacks. He said: "As we were trying to then flee from the airport we were getting tear-gassed, so we were obviously trying to drive the vehicle when we can't see anything. It was just the most horrific thing. "There's not much more I can say at the moment, I need to make sure the animals and everyone is safe." The animal lover said that his attempt to save the animals had been "stopped" by Biden. <img class="wp-image-1263124305" src="https://img.vt.co/2021/08/Biden-1-1.jpg" alt="Joe Biden speaking." width="739" height="499" />[[imagecaption|| Credit: Alamy / MediaPunch Inc]] <a href="https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/brit-mission-save-200-dogs-24850117">The Mirror</a> reports that the Taliban turned Farthing and the animals away despite their official approval because they had been ordered to only accept individuals with a "physical passport with a visa in it", Farthing claimed. He added that the Taliban were now stopping even Afghans with British passports from reaching the airport despite the agreed August 31 evacuation deadline. The former soldier said that his group also suffered a near-miss as they attempted to evacuate. "All of a sudden we heard gunshots and our vehicle was targeted, had our driver not turned around he would have been shot in the head by a man with an AK-47," he said. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby described the two blasts at Kabul airport yesterday as a "complex attack" that has resulted in "a number of US and civilian casualties", per <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-58354229">BBC</a>. <h6>Featured image credit: timsimages / Alamy</h6>

Pen Farthing forced to abandon cats and dogs in Afghanistan as he blames Biden for rule change

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