Category Archives: Afghanistan

Afghanistan, Britain, Government, Society

Abandoned Afghan interpreters paying smugglers to flee

AFGHANISTAN

FORMER British military translators have been forced to turn to people smugglers to escape Afghanistan as the Taliban wages a murderous vendetta against those who helped the West.

At least three interpreters who worked on the front lines have handed over thousands of pounds to be smuggled out of their homeland.

They say they would rather gamble with the perilous illegal routes run by traffickers than risk being caught by the Taliban.

The fears of those who risked their lives beside UK troops have been fuelled by executions, beatings and house-to-house searches in Kabul and surrounding areas.

One former translator was taken by Taliban gunmen from his home and held in a tiny cell, accused of working for the British, while a 30-year-old ex-interpreter said his mother was beaten during a search for him last week.

The fear has seen a boom in business for human traffickers, increasing by 150 per cent since the Taliban took Kabul last month.

The three men, two of whom took their families with them, said they had no alternative but to turn to the smugglers, joining thousands of Afghans paying up to £20,000 for a family to reach countries such as France and Germany. It costs even more to get to the UK.

They are now in Iran, waiting to hear when they can move on.

Using WhatsApp, smugglers plot the route of the refugees – who they call “guests” – on separate legs of journeys from Afghanistan either via Pakistan or directly into Iran and on to Turkey. Separate teams of smugglers then orchestrate travel through Europe.

Prices for various stages of the journey are increasing rapidly as demand rises, starting with an initial £2,000 per adult from Afghanistan through Pakistan and on to Iran and £1,100 to get to Turkey.

An option involving visas and flights from Pakistan to Turkey costs around £10,000. From there, one route involves going by boat to Italy for around £8,000. The former UK military translators now in hiding in Iran are expected to be joined shortly by more Afghans who worked with British troops.

Many Afghan translators and interpreters failed to make RAF mercy flights to the UK after the fall of Kabul despite promises they would be given safe refuge in the UK. Afghan interpreters and translators feel betrayed by Britain despite the allegiance they gave to the British military in the 20-year war that ended in humiliation for the West.

One of the translators, Khan, 30, who worked for the Electronic Warfare Unit for two years, was taken to hospital after being shot in an ambush he blamed on the Taliban. He was rejected for relocation after being dismissed for using drugs.

Another of the ex-interpreters, Ahmad, 35, speaking from close to the Turkish border, said people smugglers had presented his family with “hope” as staying in his home city of Kandahar meant “possible death”. He said he plans to get to Germany where he has a brother.

The third, aged 34, who worked for the UK military for three years, is too frightened to be named while in Iran, where Afghan translators have also been killed.

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Afghanistan, Britain, Government, Politics, Society, United States

We must do deals with the Taliban

AFGHANISTAN

THE retreat from Afghanistan is over, the humiliation complete. The question facing Western leaders now is something that would have been inconceivable just a few months ago: Can we do deals with the Taliban?

Many will still find it unimaginable that the West could even consider negotiating with the heirs of the barbarians who facilitated the 9/11 atrocity.

Because of the Taliban’s record of supporting al-Qaeda’s terrorism in the past – and, in the last few days, their brutal repression out of sight of the Western media – it seems utterly immoral to have anything to do with the new government in Afghanistan.

Yet, unpopular though it may be in the traumatic aftermath of the West’s debacle, we must try to rescue what we can from the disaster.

We have to negotiate with them to try to save the lives of those poor souls we left behind, as well as doing all we can to prevent the country from again becoming a haven and training ground for terrorists’ intent on attacking the West. Of course, after our humiliating retreat, our leverage is very weak. Threats of sanctions and other financial strangleholds could simply encourage the Taliban to deal with the Chinese and Russians who would happily take advantage of any new influence they could secure. And the fact is the Taliban might not want to deal with us at all.

Yet there are incentives for the new regime in Kabul to be less brutally blinkered in its approach to dealing with the West than its predecessors 20 years ago.

One of the things that led to a flow of popular support from the corrupt former government to the Taliban was the economic plight of so many Afghans.

Drought has left millions dependent on international food aid. Keeping that aid flowing from the West and the prospect of getting Afghanistan’s money held in foreign banks gives the Taliban an incentive to restrain hardliners wanting to confront the world.

TWO

WE also have an enemy in common. The Taliban loathe the even more hard-line Islamic State – or Isis-K – group. Taliban fighters executed the local Isis-K leader when they captured him in Bagram prison, and they are only too aware that the attack on Kabul airport was aimed at destabilising the Taliban as well as murdering the US soldiers and departing Afghans there. Certainly, there are hideous dogmas shared by both the Taliban and Isis-K, but the new Taliban leaders seem anxious to avoid the mistakes of their predecessors in 2001. Whereas Isis-K wants to re-use Afghanistan as a base to attack the West, the Taliban want to avoid provoking another Western intervention.

The Taliban are well aware of what has changed since 2001. More than half the population has been born since then. The younger generation grew up loathing the corrupt Ghani regime and did not want to fight for it. These young people have also been socialised by mobile phones and social media rather than in rigid Islamic madrassas.

Keeping hordes of discontented, jobless young people from becoming a problem is a priority. Letting some of these unhappy people emigrate is one way to keep a lid on things while appeasing Western concerns.

Kabul is already mindful of a massive refugee crisis on its borders, particularly with Pakistan – a country that helped foster the Taliban – which has said that the West must engage with the new Afghan government to ensure it “remains moderate.”

The fact is that the West must engage. We should make best use of the few carrots we have – like aid money and diplomatic recognition – to reduce the terrorist threat.

Since our diplomats have long dealt with fundamentalist regimes like Saudi Arabia, the Foreign Office should be able to adapt to the Taliban’s new norms. It is depressing to admit defeat but swallowing our pride could still rescue something from the horror.

. Appendage

– A Boeing C-17A Globemaster III left Kabul (KBL) for the final time on Monday for Qatar. Shortly after taking off, an orbiting KC-135R tanker refuelled the aircraft.
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Afghanistan, Britain, Society, United States

Taliban’s £62bn haul of US military equipment

AFGHANISTAN

THE Taliban have seized American military equipment worth an astonishing £62 billion, a US politician has revealed.

Jim Banks, a Republican member of the House of Representatives, said the “negligence” of Joe Biden’s administration had allowed the militants to acquire an astonishing cache of weaponry.

Mr Banks said the Taliban may have taken 75,000 vehicles, 600,000 guns and more than 200 planes and helicopters.

In an emotive speech on the steps of the US Capitol building, he revealed the militants now had more Black Hawk helicopters than “85 per cent of the countries in the world.”

Astonishingly, the Taliban also have access to biometric devices, which have the fingerprints, eye scans and biographical information of the Afghans who have helped the Allied forces since 2001.

All the military hardware was donated to the Afghan army by the US over the past 20 years to help fight the insurgents. But the speed of the US withdrawal has meant much of it was abandoned by Afghan soldiers.

Mr Banks, who served in Afghanistan as an officer in charge of supplying weapons, revealed the militants also had US-issue body armour, night-vision goggles and medical supplies. He said: “Due to the negligence of this administration, the Taliban now has access to $85 billion (£62 billion) worth of American military equipment. Unbelievably, and unfathomable to me and so many others, the Taliban now has access to biometric devices.

“This administration still has no plan to get this military equipment or supplies back.”

US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan admitted he did not have a “complete picture” of how much of the missing inventory could now be in the hands of the enemy.

“We don’t have a complete picture, obviously, of where every article of defence material has gone, but certainly a fair amount of it has fallen into the hands of the Taliban,” he said.

Attempts were made by Allied forces to destroy some of the bigger weapons.

One US official said: “Everything that hasn’t been destroyed is the Taliban’s now.”

Current and former US military chiefs say there is concern that those weapons could be used to kill civilians or be seized by other groups such as the Islamic State. There are also fears they could be sold to China and Russia.

Michael McCaul, who sits on the US foreign affairs committee, said: “We have already seen Taliban fighters armed with US-made weapons they seized from the Afghan forces.

“This poses a significant threat to the United States and our allies.”

Video footage has emerged within the last few days of militants with a £4.4 million Black Hawk helicopter at an airport near Kandahar.

The chopper taxied on the tarmac but the pilot was unable to get it into the air.

TWO

WHEN British soldiers deployed to Helmand 15 years ago their Taliban counterparts were shabbily dressed in tattered traditional outfits and armed with decades-old Russian rifles and grenade launchers.

While they possessed guile in spades and knew every inch of the jungle-like “Green Zone” where battles were fought, they were poorly equipped and poorly trained.

Now, following the withdrawal of international forces, the Taliban has been bequeathed a £62 billion bounty of military equipment, including hundreds of fixed-wing aircraft and tactical helicopters, tens of thousands of armoured vehicles and hundreds of thousands of weapons. The transformation in the group’s appearance and capability could scarcely be more vivid or disturbing.

Sandals and shalwar kameez have been replaced by combat boots and tailored camouflage uniforms.

Ancient AK47s are nowhere to be seen. Instead, today’s Taliban carry US Green Beret-issue M4 carbines with telescoping sights. The Taliban of 15 years ago were seldom if ever seen wearing helmets. But today their headwear is more expensive and more advanced than that worn by British troops.

The group appears to have helped themselves to the state-of-the-art MBITR-2 (Multi-band Intrateam Radios) favoured by US Green Berets but denied to most conventional UK personnel. They were issued to Afghan government forces.

What’s more, their weapons appear immaculately clean and well maintained, their uniforms looked washed and ironed and they carry their weapons as British soldiers are taught to carry theirs.

The UK and the US have picked up the tab not only for the eye-wateringly expensive hardware, but also the training budget – as the Taliban’s ranks have been swollen by defectors from the Afghan National Security Forces.

The irony is that the Taliban’s newfound arsenal was supposed to prevent Afghanistan falling into Taliban hands.

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