UK government blasted over Afghan exit as hundreds left behind
LONDON, United Kingdom — The UK government on Sunday faced a torrent of criticism after its hurried withdrawal from Afghanistan ended, leaving hundreds eligible for relocation behind.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson hailed a mission "unlike anything we have seen in our lifetimes" after the UK airlifted over 15,000 people in the last two weeks.
Troops landed back at Brize Norton airbase in southern England on Sunday after Britain was forced to withdraw following the decision of its ally the United States to end its 20-year presence.
Johnson praised the evacuation efforts in "harrowing conditions" and assured the military that decades of deployment "were not in vain" after the Taliban retook control.
But current and former officials slammed government failings, suggesting many more Afghans could have been rescued.
The Observer leftwing broadsheet cited a whistleblower as saying thousands of emails from MPs and charities to the foreign ministry highlighting specific Afghans at risk from the Taliban takeover went unopened.
Foreign Minister Dominic Raab has already been strongly criticised for not immediately leaving a beach holiday when the Taliban took control.
The Observer said it saw evidence that an official email account set up by the Foreign Office to receive such pleas regularly had 5,000 unopened emails last week.
It said these included messages from ministers' offices and the leader of the opposition Labour party, Keir Starmer.
"They cannot possibly know (how many people have been left behind) because they haven't even read the emails," the whistleblower was quoted as saying.
The Foreign Office responded that its crisis team worked 24/7 "to triage incoming emails and calls".
Officials have given varying estimates of how many eligible Afghans did not board evacuation flights, the last of which left Saturday, with the head of the UK armed forces General Sir Nick Carter putting this "in the high hundreds".
The Sunday Times rightwing broadsheet quoted an unnamed minister as saying: "I suspect we could have taken out 800 to 1,000 more people".
The same minister slammed Raab, claiming he "did nothing" to build ties with third countries from which Afghans might enter the UK.
The Foreign Office acknowledged that Raab had delegated calls to his Afghan counterpart while saying he recently called his Pakistani counterpart.
The damning reports came after the Times reported last week that it found contact details of staff and job applicants left behind at the British embassy compound in Kabul, potentially endangering them.
'Haphazard and chaotic'
Public opinion has been sharply divided in Britain over a high-profile campaign by an ex-serviceman, Paul or "Pen" Farthing who runs a British animal charity to evacuate his animals and staff from a shelter in Kabul.
Farthing managed to fly out on a privately chartered plane on Saturday with around 150 cats and dogs on board, landing at Heathrow on Sunday morning.
He was hailed as a hero by supporters but opponents questioned the ethics of using official time and military support to evacuate animals as Afghans remained behind.
Tom Tugendhat, a Conservative MP and head of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, told LBC Radio that an Afghan interpreter who had worked for the UK asked him: "Why is my five-year-old worth less than your dog?"
Richard Dannatt, a former head of the British army, told Times Radio that it "looks odd that we're giving prominence to a man and a lot of cats and dogs", while adding he doubted Farthing's flight prevented any Afghans leaving.
The focus should be on why Britain did not prepare better while knowing the danger faced by former interpreters and other locally hired civilians, Dannatt said.
He called for an inquiry into why the evacuation "happened in such a haphazard and chaotic fashion".
Raab acknowledged in The Sunday Telegraph that the Afghan situation was a "bitter pill to swallow".
To deal with the Taliban regime, the UK must build a wider international coalition of regional powers and other United Nations Security Council members, including countries "with whom we have a difficult relationship", he wrote.
Get the latest news as Taliban gains control of Afghanistan. Photo courtesy of Al Jazeera/AFP
Afghanistan's supreme leader said Sunday the country's women were being saved from "traditional oppressions" by the adoption of Islamic governance and their status as "free and dignified human beings" restored.
In a statement marking this week's Eid al-Adha holiday, Hibatullah Akhundzada -- who rarely appears in public and rules by decree from the Taliban's birthplace in Kandahar -- said steps had been taken to provide women with a "comfortable and prosperous life according to Islamic Sharia".
The United Nations expressed "deep concern" last week that women were being deprived of their rights under Afghanistan's Taliban government and warned of systematic gender apartheid.
Since returning to power in August 2021, Taliban authorities have stopped girls and women from attending high school or university, banned them from parks, gyms and public baths, and ordered them to cover up when leaving home.
They have also barred them from working for the UN or NGOs, while most female government employees have been dismissed from their jobs or are being paid to stay at home.
However, Akhundzada said "necessary steps have been taken for the betterment of women as half of the society".
"All institutions have been obliged to help women in securing marriage, inheritance and other rights," his statement read. — AFP
UN chief Antonio Guterres will gather international envoys at a secret location in Doha on Monday in an increasingly desperate bid to find ways to influence Afghanistan's Taliban rulers. — AFP
The UN Security Council adopted a resolution Thursday calling on Taliban authorities to "swiftly reverse" all restrictive measures against women, condemning in particular its ban on Afghan women working for the United Nations.
The resolution, unanimously adopted by all 15 Council members, said the ban announced in early April "undermines human rights and humanitarian principles."
More broadly, the Council called on the Taliban government to "swiftly reverse the policies and practices that restrict the enjoyment by women and girls of their human rights and fundamental freedoms."
It cited access to education, employment, freedom of movement, and "women's full, equal and meaningful participation in public life."
The Council also urged "all States and organizations to use their influence" to "promote an urgent reversal of these policies and practices." — AFP
G7 foreign ministers on Tuesday demanded the "immediate reversal" of a ban on women in Afghanistan working for non-governmental organisations and the United Nations.
"We call for the immediate reversal of unacceptable decisions restricting human rights and fundamental freedoms, including the latest bans prohibiting Afghan women from working for NGOs and the UN," the top diplomats said in a statement after two days of talks in Japan.
The group also slammed the Taliban authorities' "systematic abuses of human rights of women and girls and discrimination against the members of religious and ethnic minorities".
Taliban authorities triggered international outrage this month after extending a December ban on Afghan women working for non-governmental organisations to include the UN.
They have rejected criticism over the move, saying it is an internal issue that should be "respected by all sides." — AFP
The United Nations is being forced to make an "appalling choice" over whether to continue operations in Afghanistan while the Taliban government bans women from working for the organisation, the world body says.
Under their austere interpretation of Islam, Taliban authorities have imposed a slew of restrictions on Afghan women since seizing power in 2021, including banning them from higher education and many government jobs.
In December, they banned Afghan women from working for domestic and foreign non-governmental organisations, and on April 4 extended that to UN offices across the country.
In a statement Tuesday, the UN mission in Afghanistan said the ban was "unlawful under international law, including the UN Charter, and for that reason the United Nations cannot comply".
"Through this ban, the Taliban de facto authorities seek to force the United Nations into having to make an appalling choice between staying and delivering in support of the Afghan people and standing by the norms and principles we are duty-bound to uphold," it said. — AFP
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