Former soldier tells of how he escaped chaos

HE DISGUISED HIMSELF IN LOCAL DRESS IN BACK OF VEHICLE TO REACH AIRPORT

A NOTTINGHAM man who served in the British Army for 35 years before moving to the private sector in Kabul has described his escape from Afghanistan.

Lloyd Comer, now at home in Nottingham, said he left Afghanistan despite the Foreign Office told him to stay put, adding that he had a really good intelligence team that said he needed to move as the Taliban was “essentially on the doorstep”.

“Eventually, with the analysts saying that the area was unsafe, I made the decision to move,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

Despite the fact that he usually travelled in an armoured land cruiser while in Afghanistan, he made the decision that it would be “too conspicuous”.

“I dressed in local dress, got in the back of one of the local guys’ personal white Toyota Corolla, which there are thousands of in the city of Kabul,” Mr Comer recalled.

“Three guys drove me from the camp I was at, about a 30 or 40-minute drive through various Taliban checkpoints, then bundled me out into the crowds with my equipment and got me through the gates. “It was very tense. “Taliban were firing into the air and people were being hit with canes but no-one was being shot.”

Speaking about how it felt to be home, he said: “It’s emotional. I’m home, I’m safe. And my heart bleeds for those people that I left behind.

“The guilt that you feel for leaving your friends and those loyal staff when they probably needed me most is pretty much overwhelming, to be honest.”

He said he has been bombarded with messages from people “pleading” with him to help them find a way out of Afghanistan as if he is “some sort of Messiah”. Mr Comer said: “Unfortunately I’m not. I’m just an ordinary, very lucky man. But my heart bleeds for those beautiful people, and that crazy country, and heaven only knows what’s going to happen.”

My heart bleeds for those people that I left behind

Lloyd Comer