The United States, the UK and Australia have all issued warnings over possible terrorist attacks at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul.

The warnings come as crowds of thousands have continued to gather at the airport gates. Afghans and foreigners have been surrounding the airport for days in the hope of fleeing the Taliban, who took over the capital earlier this month.

Britain and Australia cited the "high threat" of a terrorist attack while the US embassy in Kabul has advised Americans not to travel to the airport due to unspecified "security threats" outside the gates.

Citizens already at the airport's Abbey Gate, East Gate and North Gate have been advised to leave "immediately," the US embassy said.

'Move to safe location'

Australia's department of foreign affairs said there was an "ongoing and very high threat of terrorist attack. Do not travel to Kabul Hamid Karzai International Airport. If you're in the area of the airport, move to a safe location and await further advice."

Britain's Armed Forces Minister James Heappey said there was credible intelligence of a plan to attack the airport. "I can't stress the desperation of the situation enough. The threat is credible, it is imminent, it is lethal," Heappey said on BBC Radio. "We wouldn't be saying this if we weren't genuinely concerned about offering Islamic State a target that is just unimaginable." 

The British foreign office said those wishing to leave should consider other options: "If you can leave Afghanistan safely by other means, you should do so immediately."

The Italian official organizing the air bridge from Kabul said the possibility of an attack by the Islamic State affiliate in Afghanistan against the Kabul airport "is a real threat that we take very seriously."

Stefano Portocorvo, NATO's civil representative in Afghanistan, told private Italian TV station Sky24 that the IS risk in Kabul has always been great. He added that "the Taliban does not have the numbers to take the city, but they have control close to the airport."

Evacuations ending

The US and other nations are under increasing pressure to get people out before the August 31 deadline for the US military withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Poland, Belgium, Netherlands and Denmark announced Thursday that their evacuation missions have ended.

The French Prime Minister Emmanuel Macron has announced that France will end its Kabul evacuation operation on Friday (August 27).

A tenth flight carrying evacuees landed in Paris on Wednesday, with 21 French and 220 Afghan nationals, including 130 children on board, according to the French Office of Immigration and Integration. In total, at least 1,720 Afghans and a hundred French people have been evacuated by France since the beginning of the operation last week.

The German airlift operation from Kabul is likely to end very soon, sources told the German news agency dpa. On Thursday morning, a German transport plane flying from the Uzbek capital Tashkent landed in Kabul, according to a statement posted on Twitter by the Bundeswehr Operations Command.

Four more German evacuation flights were planned for Thursday. On Wednesday evening, the Bundeswehr airlifted 167 people from the Afghan capital on the last of several flights that day.

"A total of 5,193 people have been brought to safety by the Bundeswehr since the start of the evacuation mission – yesterday alone there were 539," the defence ministry wrote on Twitter on Thursday. "We are evacuating up to the last second."

With agencies, DW