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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 AJ (who cannot reveal his name for fear of being attacked) has been repeatedly rejected for resett...

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 for Refugees (UNHCR) has long recognised that local Afghan staff, including local interpreters, sec...

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. Even if we have no troops on the ground, there is still much that we can do and should. The sacrifices...

On April 30, 1975, Sandy Gall was one of the few Western journalists to stay in Saigon to witness the South Vietnamese capital's 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. That morning Gall, later ITN's distinguished newscaster, entered the by now abandoned and looted comp...

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 they condemn as 'spies of the infidel' because of their work for the British. Translators for t...