The Prime Minister is holding an emergency meeting with senior government figures amid the growing tensions in Afghanistan. 

Boris Johnson will chair a COBRA meeting this afternoon, following reports that the Taliban have taken hold of three provincial capitals in the south of the country, surrounding its capital Kabul. 

Downing Street announced this afternoon that an emergency meeting is to be held with a spokesman saying: "The Prime Minister is convening a COBR this afternoon to discuss the current situation in Afghanistan." 

Earlier today, Labour's shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy MP said Parliament should be recalled if the Government does not outline a clear strategy to deal with the situation

She told the BBC's World at One programme: "I think if the Government cannot step up now and show that it has a clear strategy, a plan, and is doing all that it can to support the Afghan people and to deal with what is a really horrific situation … if the Government cannot show that it is doing that then it may well fall to parliamentarians, cross-party parliamentarians, to try to put that pressure on to persuade the Speaker that we need a recall of Parliament.

“It is not too late for the Government to step forward and start to outline what it is doing, but we have got to have the opportunity to hold them to account, and I will be speaking to colleagues from other political parties later this afternoon to see if there is more that we can do to make that happen.”