Australia yesterday abruptly announced it will shutter its embassy in Afghanistan this week, expressing fears over the "increasingly uncertain security environment" in Kabul as foreign troops withdraw. 

The Taliban, which has ramped up violence across the country in recent weeks, reacted by saying it would provide a "safe environment" to foreign diplomats and humanitarian organisations.

The United States and allied forces are in the final stages of pulling out their remaining troops from Afghanistan, ending America's longest-ever war, but heralding an uncertain future for a nation in the tightening grip of Taliban militants. Fears of a Taliban comeback is growing within the country.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the embassy would close in just three days.Around 80 Australian troops are leaving as part of the wider military pull-out, and without that small contingent and the larger US force as back-up, Morrison said there was an "increasingly uncertain security environment".

The elected government in Kabul and Afghan security services remain fragile despite two decades of foreign capacity building, and their success is far from assured without continued US military support.

When the Taliban seized control of Kabul in 1996, they entered the United Nations compound and abducted the country's former leader Najibullah Ahmadzai, who they then murdered. Two years later, the Taliban oversaw the killing of 10 Iranian diplomats at their consulate in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif.

In recent weeks, violence across Afghanistan has soared and government forces have clashed with Taliban fighters not far from Kabul.