Page 5 - Simon Diggins News Today

It lifts a shadow from our lives and means finally my family will be safe from the Taliban, said the 29-year-old who worked for three years with military spies and frontline troops in Helmand Province.

Endangered local workers are being offered chance to come to Britain to protect them from possible reprisals if security worsens

40% of all civilian casualties from airstrikes in Afghanistan – almost 1,600 – in the last five years were children Format Between 2016-2020 (inclusive) there have, in Afghanistan, been: 3,977 total civilian casualties from airstrikes: 2,122 civilians killed, 1,855 civilians injured 1,598 total child casualties from airstrikes: 785 children killed, 813 children injured 40% of all civilian airstrike casualties were children (1,598 of 3,977) 37% of those civilians killed by airstrikes were c...

I am standing as an Independent, as we need strong voices, unconstrained by party politics, to make the changes necessary.

BBC News By Jack Hunter image captionUK and US forces will leave Afghanistan by September AJ has been scared to leave his home in Kabul for months - he fears the Taliban want him and his family dead. Now in his early 30s, he is one of hundreds of Afghans who worked with British forces as interpreters and support staff, and who may now be targeted by the militants as a result. They fear the risk will only increase when foreign forces pull out this year. But AJ (who cannot reveal his name for fe...

Rejected Afghan interpreters facing death after UK exit © Getty Images UK and US forces will leave Afghanistan by September AJ has been scared to leave his home in Kabul for months - he fears the Taliban want him and his family dead. Now in his early 30s, he is one of hundreds of Afghans who worked with British forces as interpreters and support staff, and who may now be targeted by the militants as a result. They fear the risk will only increase when foreign forces pull out this year. But ...

The announcement of the US and Nato military withdrawal from Afghanistan later this year has elicited many responses, not least expressions of concern about the plight of interpreters and other local staff employed by western military forces. These concerns are not new but now have renewed urgency. The release of 5,000 Taliban prisoners in 2020 as part of a US-brokered peace deal has already exacerbated fears about the insecure future of local Afghan staff. The United Nations High Commissioner...

If we wish to sustain the fragile progress, we need to help the Afghan government contain the Taliban. The key lesson of the period from 1989 to 1996, is to continue to financially support that government. We also need to close down the Taliban’s extensive financial network; they are making millions from drugs, people smuggling and racketeering – and that money is in our global financial system. It needs to be found and sequestrated. Afghanistan deserves better than a repeat performance. Ev...

On April 30, 1975, Sandy Gall was one of the few Western journalists to stay in Saigon to witness the South Vietnamese capitals fall to the forces of the Communist North. In previous days, chaotic scenes at the American embassy had provided the most iconic images of this final act of the Vietnam War.  Thousands of locals who had reason to fear the victors begged and fought to be allowed aboard the last U.S. helicopters taking a lucky few from the embassy roof to navy vessels lying offshore. Th...

Translators for the UK military in Afghanistan have warned we will pay with our blood for the withdrawal of British troops from their homeland. Former and serving translators reacted with anger and alarm yesterday as the UK followed the US and other Nato allies such as Germany in a commitment to leave Afghanistan by September.  Men who stood shoulder-to-shoulder with UK forces fear they will be left behind to face a resurgent, emboldened Taliban.  It has sworn to take revenge on interpreters...