‘Taliban fighters came to my house. I escaped just in time'

Telegraph

3 days ago

The knock came at 3am, sharp and deliberate against the aged metal door.
But the house, in western Afghanistan, was empty – it had been for nearly two years, ever since the day everything changed for the man who once called it home.
He sits now in a cramped shelter across the border in Iran, watching his phone buzz with another frantic message from family who stayed behind in Afghanistan.
The Taliban had come again, searching, questioning, demanding answers his relatives couldn't give.
'They've been going to my relatives' homes twice a week asking about me. I'm just glad I managed to flee, otherwise they would have killed my whole family,' the former member of the Afghan special forces told The Telegraph from a small town outside Tehran.
'They came to my house a few weeks ago, which is right next to my parents', and started knocking at 3am, looking for me. They think I return home at night.'
His name had appeared on a 'kill list' of Afghans who had helped British forces before the fall of Kabul in 2021.
The list, carrying 25,000 names of soldiers and their families, was accidentally leaked online in 2022 by a Royal Marine.
The names were supposed to remain secret, protected by government security protocols. Instead, they became a Taliban hunting manual.
The man and a group of other Afghans on the list had heard rumours of compensation. One law firm – based in the UK – is suing the Ministry of Defence on behalf of at least 1,000 Afghans who claim they were affected by the breach.
However, for those on the list who never made it to the UK, compensation is the least of their priorities. 'Officially, through the case we filed, no one has communicated anything to us,' the man said.
'We are very disappointed and just waiting. The British government has not told us what to do.
'I'm not alone, there are many people like me here and in Afghanistan who have been living in fear and waiting when death would knock on the door.'
Britain has secretly offered asylum to nearly 24,000 Afghan soldiers and their families caught up in the most serious data breach in history.
The leak, involving the details of 18,800 soldiers, along with about 6,000 of their family members, was revealed on Tuesday after a two-year super-injunction was lifted by the High Court in London.
However, the former member of the Afghan special forces said many of those who were taken to Britain were neither high-ranking nor facing serious threats to their lives.
' People like base gardeners or low-ranking soldiers were taken to Britain, but many high-ranking colonels whose lives are truly at risk were left behind, just waiting for death to come,' he said.
'It's deeply disappointing. This isn't justice. I don't understand how they prioritised the evacuations – they even took the guy who used to polish shoes, or a base's barber, but left behind many colonels.'
The Home Office regularly declines to comment on the specific categories of individuals brought to the UK.
The man served with the British Army's special forces, his skills and courage earning him respect among his international colleagues.
His nephew told The Telegraph from Afghanistan: 'He was too courageous and everyone in his unit knew that, but England left him behind after their forces left.
'For months he was living in different homes of relatives and in villages and towns around Herat.'
When Western forces withdrew in 2021, the man applied for asylum in the UK, submitting documents that included his service record and his family's details. It was supposed to be his pathway to safety.
Instead, it became his death warrant.
The Taliban claims they obtained the list from the internet during the first days after it was leaked.
While the Government spent £7 billion on a covert operation to relocate thousands of affected Afghans to the UK, the man and his family remained trapped in limbo, their names circulating among Taliban units with orders to find them.
'They keep pressuring us to reveal his whereabouts,' his nephew said. 'They once arrested me and beat me for a day. My uncle served with the special forces. The Taliban keep saying he must come with them for questioning.'
Taliban fighters don't just visit once and leave. They return regularly, methodically working through extended family networks, applying pressure with each visit.
They know intimate details. Information that could only have come from the leaked asylum applications.
'It's putting everyone in the family at risk,' the nephew explains. 'Being related to someone on a Taliban kill list is a death sentence.
He added: 'They have all his details – his name, his wife's name, even his children's names. We were shocked when they listed them.'
The Taliban's message to the family is brutally clear: if they can't find the man, they'll kill another family member instead.
'The blood of a spy is in your veins,' they told his relatives, transforming his service into a hereditary crime that endangers everyone who shares his name.
Nearly two years have passed since he fled to Iran with his family, but the pursuit hasn't diminished. If anything, it has intensified.
A senior Taliban official told The Telegraph that a special unit had been launched to find those on the list, with names handed over to border forces to prevent escape.
The hunt has become institutionalised, with senior figures in Kandahar pressuring officials in Kabul to locate the targets.
'These people are seen as traitors,' a Taliban official said, 'and the plan has been to find as many of them as possible.'
For the man hiding in Iran, the news grows more desperate by the day. The Islamic Republic is now deporting hundreds of thousands of Afghans back into Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.
Iran is using espionage allegations against Afghans as a pretext for the mass arrests and deportations following the recent conflict with Israel.
The Telegraph spoke to Afghans in Iran, at the border, and in Afghanistan who said the regime in Tehran was targeting them to divert public attention from its 'humiliation' by Israel in last month's 12-day war.
During the conflict, daily deportations jumped from 2,000 to over 30,000 as Iranian authorities turned public anger toward the vulnerable minority.
Those persecuted by the regime also reported suffering widespread abuses including beatings, arbitrary detention.
Since early June, nearly 450,000 Afghan refugees, many who arrived after the Taliban returned to power in 2021, have been deported and 5,000 children separated from their parents, according to UN agencies.
'The situation in Iran isn't good,' the former special forces member said. 'I emailed them [British officials], but all I got was an automatic reply saying they'd get back to me.'