What we need to do now is not turn our backs on Afghanistan, Boris Johnson said (FILE)
London:
Britain will not abandon Afghanistan, Prime Minister Boris Johnson promised Friday, even as he confirmed the imminent withdrawal of most embassy personnel in the face of a swift Taliban attack.
With Islamists seizing control of more Afghan cities, Britain is deploying about 600 troops to help evacuate the country’s 3,000 or so nationals, and Johnson said the “large majority” of the remaining embassy personnel in Kabul would go to the UK. return.
Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said President Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw US troops, forcing NATO allies to follow suit, “leaves a very big problem on the ground” and will boost Taliban momentum. gave.
He predicted that it would benefit al-Qaeda, which had been given a safe haven by the Taliban before the September 11, 2001 attacks, which sparked the West’s 20-year involvement in Afghanistan.
However, after convening crisis talks with senior cabinet colleagues, Johnson said the West maintained a strategic interest in supporting Kabul’s beleaguered government.
“I think we have to be realistic about the power of the UK or the power to impose a military solution – a combat solution – in Afghanistan,” he told reporters.
“What we can certainly do is work with all our partners in the region, around the world, who share a common interest in preventing Afghanistan from becoming a breeding ground for terror again.
“What we need to do now is not turn our backs on Afghanistan,” he stressed, adding that Britain could be “extremely proud” of its role in the country, especially in promoting girls’ education – gains that are now jeopardized by the Taliban advance.
The Prime Minister added that Home Office officials flew to Kabul to help Afghan interpreters serving with the British Army apply for resettlement in Britain.
Many of the translators have complained about the British dragging their feet and say they now fear for their lives given the risk of retaliation from the Taliban.
‘Total betrayal’
Wallace previously said on Sky News that Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump, had struck a “rotten deal” with the Taliban that would allow the US to end its longest war, following the lead of British military leaders who devastated the withdrawal.
Tom Tugendhat, the chairman of the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, told the BBC: “We have just pulled the rug from under them”, referring to the Afghan people.
The Conservative MP, a former reservist who served in Afghanistan, added that Britain’s need to send more troops to facilitate the withdrawal was “a sure sign of failure”.
Former Secretary of International Development, Rory Stewart, called the withdrawal “a total betrayal by the US and UK”, which could spark a civil war between rival warlords currently fighting the Taliban.
Johnny Mercer, a Conservative MP and former veterans minister who also fought as an army officer in Afghanistan, called the withdrawal “a disgrace”.
“I think it’s humiliating for the British military, for the families who lost people there, but above all it’s a huge tragedy for the people of Afghanistan who have been through so much in so many years,” he told Times Radio.
“We chose this defeat and it is shameful.”
Northern Ireland’s Ulster Unionist Party leader Doug Beattie, who joined the British army in Afghanistan three times, said ordinary Afghans would pay the price.
“We have raised the expectations of the Afghan people that we would create something better for them,” he told Irish state broadcaster RTE.
“And we’re going to crush it through our inaction… We’ve made strategic failures, and the latest is to leave Afghanistan as soon as we have and without a political settlement.”
(This story was not edited by NewsMadura staff and was generated automatically from a syndicated feed.)
