The British government has confirmed that it has “already resettled over 3,300 Afghan staff and their families” in the United Kingdom as the Taliban is poised to overrun the country.
The Home Office, the government department led by Priti Patel MP which is broadly responsible for borders, policing, and national security in Britain, announced on Sunday morning that the Afghans “who have worked for the UK” are already in the country, adding that Boris Johnson’s government “will continue to fulfil our international obligations and moral commitments.”
Breitbart London reported on August 13th that the British government was surging 600 troops back into Afghanistan to help “assist British nationals to leave the country and support the relocation of former Afghan staff who risked their lives serving alongside us”.
The number of British citizens still in the country was estimated at around 4,000 at that time, with the number of Afghans eligible to be evacuated alongside them not entirely clear.
Since then, the situation in the Islamic republic has deteriorated rapidly, with Taliban fighters in the suburbs of the capital of Kabul and reportedly in negotiations with the Western-backed regime for an imminent transfer of power as of the time of publication.
2/2 Home Office officials are right now working to protect British nationals and help former UK staff and other eligible people travel to the UK
— Home Office (@ukhomeoffice) August 15, 2021
Not all of the British citizens currently in Afghanistan may be interested in being evacuated, however, with security sources having recently disclosed that some of them are fighting alongside the Taliban.
“We have received some intercepts of two British men, probably below 30, talking openly on mobiles,” a senior military intelligence source revealed.
“One had a London accent, what you might call a street accent.”
The British government conceded in a statement that Taliban defectors “pose a very serious national security risk” to the United Kingdom but tried to assuage concerns by saying that “The Home Secretary has a number of powers available to prevent the return of individuals who pose a national security risk to the UK.”
They added that “Those who do return must expect to be investigated by the police,” although the government’s record in successfully prosecuting defectors returning to Britain from Syria and Iraq has been extremely poor.
Britain Has Highest Rate of ‘Exceptionally Dangerous’ Returning Jihadists in EU https://t.co/GSqjoZn6AJ
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) June 30, 2019
This story is developing…
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