BETRAYED IN LIFE AND NOW IN DEATH
»»Mum of soldier killed in Afghanistan hits out »»Chaos at airport as Kabul falls to Taliban
THE mum of a Scots soldier gunned down in Afghanistan believes he has been “betrayed in life and death” after seeing the Taliban take control of the country.
Sean Binnie, 22, was killed during a firefight in Helmand in 2009. His mum Janette said: “What was the point? Why did he have to die?”
PANIC and chaos led to deaths at Kabul airport yesterday as people trying to flee the Taliban crowded runways and clung to planes.
Some were crushed and others who held on to a departing US jet fell hundreds of feet to their deaths.
Eight locals were killed as troops started evacuating thousands of Western officials – 6,000 of them British – and aides from Afghanistan.
A US Air Force C-17 Globemaster carrier plane took off on Sunday with 640 Afghans who had clambered in.
Instead of trying to force people off the aircraft, a US defence official said the “crew made the decision to go”.
The Pentagon said last night all flights in and out had been halted “out of an abundance of caution” and did not know when they would resume.
During horrific scenes after the Taliban took over the Afghan capital:
■ Three men died under a plane’s wheels as crowds chased down a flight trying to leave the airport.
■ Two locals trying to storm a plane were shot dead by US troops brought in to hold back insurgents.
■ There were claims the Taliban was hunting down ex-officials, politicians, soldiers and ex-government figures in door-to-door searches.
■ An SAS team was deployed undercover on a hazardous mission to rescue Britons.
■ The Taliban warn hundreds of feared “foreign fighters” were on their way and that Westerners should “leave now”, a source claimed.
By last night as many as 900 British troops were protecting Kabul airport, along with 6,000 US soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division.
It means the Ministry of Defence has boosted the original rescue mission with 300 reinforcements – and sources say more are on standby.
The mission includes Border Force staff who will help process and manage those airlifted away by RAF C-17 transport planes. It was mounted from Minhad in the United Arab Emirates and the British base in Cyprus.
Gunfire echoed around Kabul yesterday as the Taliban’s iron grip tightened, despite their claims they would operate an “inclusive” rule.
The Mirror has learned the SAS team was joined by US operatives and two Afghan interpreters who are among those hoping to escape for fear of Taliban reprisals. There are claims of summary killings of former officials, police, soldiers and anyone who worked with the former Kabul government or with coalition forces.
Yesterday a British private security team was forced to negotiate their way through a nearby Taliban checkpoint.
A source said: “The Taliban told them ‘you need to leave now because a large number of foreign fighters is heading to Kabul and you don’t want to be here when they arrive. These fighters will not be peaceful’.”
The Taliban guard told them the battle-hardened foreign fighters were travelling from Wardak, 100 miles west of Kabul, and have a reputation as brutal, merciless fighters.
Uzbekistan claimed hundreds of Afghan troops had fled over the border with dozens of aircraft. The haul includes 22 military planes and 24 helicopters. A total of 585 Afghan soldiers arrived by aircraft and 158 crossed the border on foot. Yesterday it emerged Boris Johnson and Dominic Raab were on holiday as Kabul fell. The Prime Minister was away on Saturday, thought to be in the South West of
England, but he cut short his summer break after a day.
Photographs appeared to show him at Taunton train station on Sunday.
He spoke to French President Emmanuel Macron about how to prevent a humanitarian and refugee crisis and intends to host a virtual meeting of G7 leaders.
Mr Macron later said that the EU would set up an initiative to stop large migrant flows coming from Afghanistan.
The Foreign Secretary returned from abroad on Sunday and was spotted entering the Foreign Office yesterday morning.
Neither No10 nor the Foreign Office denied reports he had been on holiday.
It suggests he and the PM were caught off guard by the speed of the Taliban’s advance. Mr Raab said: “Everyone, I think, has been surprised by the scale and the pace at which the Taliban have taken over. “What matters right now is getting British nationals out, getting out those who have so loyally served the UK, and making sure that the gains that we’ve made over 20 years are not lost.”
Tearful Defence Secretary Ben Wallace, an ex-Army officer, admitted: “Some people won’t get back.”
No10 said UK Ambassador Sir Lawrie Bristow was personally helping process visa applications at the airport alongside Home Office staff and a “small number” of UK diplomats.
Ex-national security adviser and civil service chief Sir Mark Sedwill said the fall of Afghanistan was “humiliating” for the West and that “extremists everywhere will be emboldened”.
He added that it was “a very bad day”.
Tory MP Tobias Ellwood, an ex-British Army captain who has called for an inquiry into the West’s withdrawal of troops, slammed the “chaotic exodus”.
Comparing it to the US leaving Vietnam in 1975, he said: “If this is not Saigon 2.0 I don’t know what is.”
He added: “Is this how we thought we’d depart Afghanistan?”
Former International Development Secretary Rory Stewart has said the United Kingdom should form a coalition to provide routes, funding and safety for “millions of refugees” from Afghanistan.
Billboards of smiling bridal models are torn down, symbolising the fears of women in Afghanistan after the Taliban stormed Kabul.
The extremists are back, so the women can no longer be seen; the price of burkas in occupied areas is reportedly soaring as, once again, they are forced to cover up.
Students have reported being evacuated from universities and one told how she and her sisters have had to hide their diplomas and certificates. Few have the option of escaping as the West leaves them to their fate.
In a heartbreaking video posted yesterday, one young woman said: “We don’t count because we were born in Afghanistan.” Looking little more than a teenager with her hair in plaits, she added: “We will die slowly in history.”
Women in the capital yesterday reported Taliban going from house to house hunting for females known to work in the media and politics, “making lists”.
One pioneering female journalist hiding in Kabul said she now could not leave her home.
The journalist, who as a child under the previous Taliban rule attended school dressed as a boy, said: “Today the presence of women in Kabul was very few. I’m obligated to stay at home and I’m afraid about the next days.”
Asking not to be named, she told how women had already encountered hostility from conservative men.
She said: “As my sisters and friends were rushing home today, people shouted, ‘The Taliban are coming because of you! They’re here to discipline you’,”
With two-thirds of Kabul’s population under 30, most women have no memory of the Taliban’s last rule from 1996 to 2001. Then, girls were banned from school and women from work, and they were not allowed out in public without a burka and male escort.
Things changed after Western forces arrived in Afghanistan in 2001, with 3.3million girls in education and women making up over a quarter of parliamentarians.
When I visited Camp Bastion in Helmand Province in 2013 ahead of the withdrawal of British troops, an RAF pilot told of the changes in women’s lives he had seen from the air. He described seeing them walking freely, many uncovered, going to school. United Nations secretarygeneral Antonio Guterres urged the Taliban to uphold human rights, especially for women and girls. He said: “I am particularly concerned by accounts of mounting human rights violations against the women and girls of Afghanistan who fear a return to the darkest days.”
Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai, who was shot by the Taliban in 2012 in Pakistan after she enraged them with her campaign for girls’ education, warned: “We cannot see a country going centuries back. We have to take some bold stances for the protection of women and girls, for the protection of minority groups and for peace and stability.”
In May, the Taliban said it would write laws to ensure women could continue to participate in public life. Spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said: “The purpose would be enabling women to contribute to the country in a peaceful and protected environment.”
Since so-called peace talks began, women in jobs such as journalism and law enforcement
– even polio vaccination workers – have been killed. The Taliban has denied responsibility.
Reports have also emerged of rapes and forced marriage.
Many high-profile women are now in fear for their lives. Zarifa Ghafari, 27, who in Maidan Wardak province was the country’s first female mayor, said on Sunday: “They will come for people like me and kill me. I can’t leave my family. “And anyway, where would I go?” Afghanistan’s minister of education Rangina Hamidi said: “I might have to face consequences and I guess that’s the price that we pay for trying to make this world a little better.”
Fawzia Koofi, Afghanistan’s first female deputy speaker of parliament, summed it up. The Taliban, she said, is not afraid of world superpowers. It is afraid of women.