Allies refused UK offer to stay in Afghanistan

Defence Secretary claims Nato forces did not want to form coalition as Taliban seize six provincial capitals

‘All of us were saddened about all the blood and treasure that had been spent, that this was how it was ending’

‘We have no food and we have no tents – we are helpless. Everything was destroyed in the fighting. The bullets were like rain’

THE UK tried to form a military coalition with Nato forces to keep troops in Afghanistan after the US announced it was withdrawing, Ben Wallace has revealed.

The Defence Secretary said he had tried to convince “like-minded” nations to stay in the country after it became clear the UK could not stay there without the support of US forces.

Mr Wallace told the Daily Mail: “I did try talking to Nato nations, but they were not interested; nearly all of them.

“We tried a number of like-minded nations. Some said they were keen, but their parliaments weren’t. It became apparent pretty quickly that without the United States as the framework nation it had been, these options were closed off.”

Mr Wallace added: “All of us were saddened, from the Prime Minister down, about all the blood and treasure that had been spent, that this was how it was ending.”

It comes as Taliban rebels captured their sixth regional centre in only four days yesterday, extending their blitz across northern Afghanistan. Aybak, capital of the northern province of Samangan, joined the capitals of Nimroz, Kunduz, Takhar, Jawzjan and Sar-e-pol under Taliban control.

Sefatullah Samangani, deputy governor of Samangan province, said insurgents entered Aybak without a fight after community elders pleaded with officials to spare the city from more violence following weeks of clashes.

“The governor accepted and withdrew all the forces from the city,” Mr Samangani added, saying the Taliban was now in “full control”.

However, Annegret Kramp-karrenbauer, Germany’s defence minister, rejected calls yesterday for its soldiers to return to Afghanistan after Taliban insurgents took Kunduz city where German troops were deployed for a decade. Ms Kramp-karrenbauer said:

“The reports from Kunduz and from all over Afghanistan are bitter and hurt a lot. Are society and parliament prepared to send the armed forces into a war and remain there with lots of troops for at least a generation? If we are not, then the joint withdrawal with the partners remains the right decision.”

Some within her own conservative party want German troops to participate in an intervention against the Taliban, but Ms Kramp-karrenbauer said defeating them would require a long and hard campaign.

She also blamed Donald Trump, the former US president, for undermining the Afghanistan operation over the deal he struck with Islamist militants in 2020 for US troops to leave. The policy was then implemented by his successor Joe Biden. Meanwhile, aid agencies warned of the growing toll on civilians.

The United Nations said that at least 27 children had been killed and 130 wounded in the past three days in only three of the country’s 34 provinces.

“The atrocities grow higher by the day,” said Hervé Ludovic De Lys, the representative for the UN’S children’s body, Unicef. Many have left their homes in recent days triggering a humanitarian crisis.

Several thousand arrived in a Kabul park where they said they had fled provinces like Kunduz and Takhar. “We have no food and we have no tents. We are helpless. Everything was destroyed in the fighting. The Taliban were on one side, the government on the other. The bullets were like rain,” one man said.