Bitter blow: UK's former hub in Afghanistan taken by Taliban

LONDON – For a ample chunk of the past 20 years, British troops fought hard to guarantee that the confederate Afghanistan state of Helmand did not autumn into the hands of the Taliban.

Confirmation Friday that the Taliban had captured Lashkar Gah, the superior of Helmand, had peculiar resonance successful Britain. The immense bulk of the U.K.'s 457 casualties occurred successful the state arsenic British troops fought with American and allied NATO forces. The Camp Bastion analyzable successful Helmand was the office for British subject operations from 2006 until 2014.

With the Taliban advancing rapidly and present successful power of astir two-thirds of Afghanistan, questions are being raised astir wherefore the U.K. could not person remained adjacent aft the planned departure of U.S. troops by Sept. 11.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned determination was nary “military solution” to forestall the resurgence of the Taliban.

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Following an exigency gathering implicit the deteriorating concern successful Afghanistan, Johnson said the “vast bulk” of the remaining U.K. embassy unit successful Kabul would instrumentality successful the adjacent fewer days. Meanwhile, the British authorities was besides stepping up efforts to relocate Afghans who had assisted British forces during their clip successful the state and who present look reprisals if they autumn into hands of the militants.

“I deliberation we’ve got to beryllium realistic astir the abilities of the U.K. oregon immoderate powerfulness to enforce a subject solution, a combat solution successful Afghanistan,” helium said. “What we surely tin bash is enactment with each our partners successful the portion and astir the satellite who stock an involvement with america successful preventing Afghanistan from erstwhile again becoming a breeding crushed for terror.”

U.S. President Joe Biden announced the timeline for the U.S. withdrawal successful April, saying helium was determined to extremity America’s longest war. His determination led the different nations successful the NATO coalition, including the U.K., to denote their ain departures, 2 decades aft they archetypal arrived successful Afghanistan pursuing the 9/11 attacks.

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Johnny Mercer, a erstwhile defence curate successful Britain's Conservative authorities and an Afghanistan veteran, said Biden made a “huge mistake” but that the U.K. did not person to travel suit and could person mustered enactment among different NATO allies successful the International Security Assistance Force.

“This thought we cannot enactment unilaterally and enactment the Afghan information forces is simply not true,” Mercer told the BBC. “The governmental volition to spot done enduring enactment to Afghanistan has not been there, and a batch of radical are going to dice due to the fact that of that, and for maine that is highly humiliating."

Britain's defence secretary, Ben Wallace, expressed his concerns astir the unfolding concern successful Afghanistan, not slightest the imaginable for al-Qaeda to return, but said the authorities had nary prime but to travel the U.S. lead.

“When the United States, arsenic the model nation, took that decision, the mode we were each configured, the mode we had gone in, meant that we had to permission arsenic well," helium said connected Sky News.

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Wallace denied the determination Thursday to nonstop astir 600 British troops to Afghanistan to assistance the 4,000 oregon truthful remaining U.K. nationals successful the state to permission was a panic measure, saying plans had been enactment successful spot months ago. The U.S. said Thursday that it was sending an further 3,000 troops to Afghanistan to assistance successful the evacuation of immoderate unit from the U.S. Embassy successful Kabul.

U.K. troops were sent to Helmand successful 2006, arsenic portion of a reorganization of conjugation troops, initially with the volition of providing stableness and information for reconstruction projects. However, they were soon drawn into combat operations; Camp Bastion successful Helmand became the basal of British Operation Herrick, with 9,500 troops stationed there.

Soldiers patrolled the state and faced the changeless menace of ambush from insurgents, whose section cognition often gave them an advantage.

More than 100,000 British troops served successful Afghanistan successful the past 2 decades, though their numbers fell dramatically aft December 2014, erstwhile NATO's combat ngo ended. The soldiers determination since ostensibly trained Afghan service troops and supported a wide scope of projects to amended education, peculiarly for girls, wellness care, economical maturation and section governance successful Helmand and crossed the country.

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Yale University Senior Fellow Rory Stewart, a erstwhile planetary improvement caput successful the British authorities and a respected writer connected Afghanistan, criticized the withdrawal arsenic a “completely unnecessary, unsafe decision." He warned that millions of Afghans would go refugees.

“We’ve fundamentally created different Syria overnight," helium said.

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