The Afghan Kill List |
Afghan evacuees boarding American aircraft during Operation Allies Refuge in 2021.
In February 2022, a British Royal Marine officer—often among the brightest—made a mistake while seconded to a UK Special Forces base at Regent’s Park barracks in London. He was trying to sift through thousands of false claimants. His task: reduce the number of bogus and potentially dangerous applicants. He believed he was protecting his country.
He emailed a spreadsheet to the wrong people. On it were names of Afghan men and women who had helped the UK. Some had fought. Some interpreted. Some did quieter work. It listed where they lived—and with whom. It also included over a hundred UK special forces and intelligence personnel, plus other government staff.
It was, in effect, a kill list. Handed out by accident.
To keep the Taliban from seeing it—without knowing if they already had—the UK government asked the courts for silence. Also, what if those UK names were passed on to Russia, China or Iran? They got it: an injunction. No one could speak. The truth was buried—not like a hatchet, more like an Afghan peshkabz—so people could be rescued. I repeat: so people could be rescued.
Not all were.
They said 100,000 were at risk. About 18,500 got out. Secret routes. Back channels. The cost? Nearly a billion pounds. The total Afghan resettlement bill? Six billion? Numbers should be easy to count. People are not. Alarmingly, defence sources now said only one in sixteen people in the breach might be genuine—might. The rest with no link to the Armed Forces. There were even whispers of attempted blackmail by one Afghan. Whispers can be pernicious, even if true. Understandably, the real claimants still stranded in Afghanistan were no friends of those exploiting the leak.
The secrecy broke only last week when the courts lifted the injunction—by then a super-injunction, meaning even its........