British shopkeeper was waving his passport at UK troops when he was killed in Kabul bomb blast

A shopkeeper from North London was named as one of the British victims of the Kabul airport attack on Thursday.

Musa Popal, 60, was pushing through the crowd trying to attract the attention of soldiers by waving his British passport when he was killed by the suicide bomber, it was reported last night.

His wife Saleema managed to crawl away from the carnage. 

Musa Popal (pictured), who lives in north London, had been visiting relatives in the Khandahar province since the end of May when he was killed by one of the blasts in Kabul on Thursday

Pictured: A Taliban fighter stands guard at the site of the August 26 twin suicide bombs, which killed scores of people, at Kabul airport on August 27, 2021

Their 14-year-old grandson, Hameed, who lived in Afghanistan and acted as an interpreter for his grandparents, is missing and feared dead.

Mr Popal, a British-Afghan dual national from Hendon, had been running the Madeena Supermarket near Brent Cross for the past 20 years.

His grief-stricken son Hidayat said: ‘He went to see his family and children. Three of my sisters and one of my brothers live there and some of them have got married recently so he went to celebrate.

‘We didn’t expect the situation to get that bad. It’s always been bad but we didn’t expect this.

Daughter Zohra described her father as a ‘very funny, very caring guy’, adding: ‘We can’t believe he has been killed – he was such a loving and kind-hearted man.’

Three British citizens and the daughter of a UK national were killed in the atrocity on Thursday. Mohamed Niazi, 29, an Uber driver from Aldershot, Hampshire, was among the victims.

His cousin, Ghulam Husain Niazi, from the same town, said: ‘I was told he was shot rather than killed in the explosion.’

Mr Niazi had flown to Afghanistan to rescue his wife and children after the country fell to Taliban control. His cousin said one of Mr Niazi’s children was in hospital.

A Taliban fighter stands guard at the site of the terrorist attack which killed over 100 people outside Kabul airport 

Pictured left: Muhammad Niazi, a British Afghan who travelled there from London to help his family. Pictured right: One of Mr Niazi’s daughters. As of last night, his wife, youngest child and eldest daughter were still missing, according to the broadcaster, with his brother and survivor of the blast – Abdul Hamid – saying ‘I saw some children in the river’