[ad_1]
UK Embassy staff left a “hit list” of Afghan workers who assisted Western forces in their abandoned compound in Kabul as they fled the Taliban.
Worker contact details and CVs were seen scattered around the embassy in the Afghan capital by a journalist from The temperature during a visit to the deserted diplomatic quarter of the city, accompanied by a Taliban patrol.
2
2
War correspondent Anthony Loyd said as he looked around the building he saw documents that British diplomats had left behind, with personal information – including names, addresses and phone numbers – of some of the employees Afghans from the embassy on the papers.
Applications also containing sensitive data were also spotted among the rubble for all to see during Tuesday’s visit.
While escorted by Taliban fighters, Loyd was unable to remove the documents himself, but The Times called the newspaper numbers, revealing that some Afghan staff and their families remain stranded in Kabul.
Some staff and candidates were still waiting to be evacuated, while others were stranded outside the airport perimeter.
Others were able to evacuate or managed to flee the war-torn country on their own.
Among those left behind were three Afghan workers and eight family members, including five children, who were stranded among crowds unable to reach the British-held airport area, the outlet reported.
Loyd handed details of the missing personnel to senior Foreign Ministry officials stationed at Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport – with arrangements then made for their evacuation.
But the fate of at least two candidates for interpreter positions remains unknown.
🔵 Read our live blog on Afghanistan for the latest updates
This raised questions as to whether protocols on destroying sensitive information were followed, Loyd writing: “This suggests that British Embassy staff have been negligent with the lives of Afghan employees in a rush to save theirs.”
But the Foreign Ministry insisted that steps were taken to ensure that personal details on the documents do not fall into the hands of the Taliban.
“We worked tirelessly to keep those who worked for us safe, including securing three families,” a spokesperson told Sun Online.
“When our embassy was withdrawn, every effort was made to destroy sensitive material. ”
A Foreign Ministry source added, “We are grateful to The Times for sharing the recovered information with us and working with us to enable us to bring these three families to safety.”
It comes after Joe Biden appeared to admit that the United States may have given the Taliban henchmen a “kill list” to target Afghans who had previously assisted Americans in the country.
Evacuation efforts are stepping up as the president’s self-imposed deadline for withdrawing all U.S. troops by August 31 draws near.
Officials reportedly gave the activists lists of U.S. citizens, green card holders and Afghan allies so they could safely enter the perimeter of Kabul airport, according to Politics.
The move angered some lawmakers, as a defense official told the outlet: “Basically they just put all these Afghans on a disposal list.
At Thursday’s press conference, Biden did not deny that names may have been given to the Taliban.
He said: “There have been occasions when our military have contacted their military counterparts in the Taliban and said this, for example, this bus comes with X number of people on board, made up of the following group of people.
“We want you to let this bus or group pass. So yes, there have been occasions like that. As far as I know, in these cases most of it happened and they were let go. “
BREATHTAKING BIDEN
Meanwhile, the president appeared to lash out at a reporter and lose his breath in a moment of silence for victims of the Kabul airport bombing during a nationwide address.
“I ask you to join me now – in a moment of silence,” a muffled Biden almost whispered at a press conference to address the nation in the White House.
But Biden turned less gloomy when he answered a question from Fox News reporter Peter Doocy.
Doocy prefaced his question that no US serviceman had been killed in action in Afghanistan since February 2020.
He then asked the president if he had “any responsibility for the way things went”,
Biden got angry and replied, “I fundamentally bear the responsibility for everything that has happened in recent times.
“But here’s the deal. But you know – I would like you to say these things – you know as well as I do that the former president made a deal with the Taliban to withdraw all US forces from Afghanistan by May 1.
At least 13 US soldiers and dozens of Afghan civilians have been killed in a terrorist attack at Kabul airport.
ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack as the terrorist group posted a photo of one of the suicide bombers Abdul Rehman Al-Loghri.
[ad_2]
