Taliban ‘already murdering Afghans linked to foreign military' days after chilling warning over MoD ‘kill list' leak
Fears have been growing over the safety of more than 18,000 Afghans whose details were included on the secret list.
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The Taliban regained control of Afghanistan in August 2021
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Details of almost 20,000 refugees fleeing the Taliban were leaked after a top secret email was sent to the wrong person
Credit: AP
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A number of named individuals have already been assassinated
Credit: AFP
A number of named individuals have been assassinated since the leak with one man shot four times in the chest at close range on Monday one of three assassinations in the past week according to the
It comes after the Taliban sent a
fleeing the
Taliban were leaked after a Royal Marine mistakenly sent a top secret email to the wrong people.
Since then panic has been spreading as up to 100,000 could face deadly repercussions from ruthless Taliban rulers who hunt down and kill anyone who helped the UK forces.
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But sources have insisted it was impossible to prove conclusively whether it was a direct result of the data breach.
Afghans were informed on Tuesday that their personal details had been lost including names, phone numbers and their family's details as well as other details that could help the Taliban hunt them down.
It is not yet known whether the Taliban is in possession of the database.
It includes names of Afghans as well as the names of their individual UK sponsors including
Major General.
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One Afghan soldier who fled to Britain in fear of retribution, believes his brother was shot in the street this week because the Taliban believed he was affiliated to the UK.
"If or when the Taliban have this list, then killings will increase – and it will be Britain's fault," he said.
Taliban warns thousands of Afghans secretly airlifted to UK 'we will HUNT you down'
"There will be many more executions like the one on Monday."
He is convinced his sibling was executed because of his own association with Afghan special forces, known as the Triples.
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He believes that the Taliban sought revenge on his family instead as news of his brother's murder reached him in Britain within an hour of the execution.
A day later, Taliban fighters dragged a woman from her home and beat her in the street.
A former British military interpreter who witnessed the attack claimed it was because the woman's husband "worked for the West" and is now hiding in Iran.
Taliban officials have claimed the details of all the refugees have been known to them since 2022, after they allegedly sourced the information from the internet.
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A dossier listing more than 300 murders includes those who worked with the UK and some who had applied for the UK's Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (ARAP) scheme.
This includes senior Afghan intelligence officer, Colonel Shafiq Ahmad Khan, a 61-year-old grandfather who had worked alongside British forces.
He was shot in the heart on his doorstep in May 2022.
There has been fury this week over the data breach's deadly implications with one angry former interpreter saying: "We risked our lives for the UK standing beside them day after day, now they are risking our lives again."
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The epic
MoD
blunder was kept Top Secret for almost three years by a legal super injunction.
And the government is still battling the courts to keep details behind the Afghan data leak secret.
Thousands of the refugees had to be secretly relocated to the UK and it is set to cost Britain up to £7 billion.
A total of 18,714 Afghans were included on the secret list, many of whom arrived via unmarked planes which landed at
airport.
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Many of the Afghans who were flown into the country as part of Operation Rubific were initially housed at MoD
homes
or
hotels
until permanent accommodation was found.
Only around 10 to 15 per cent of the individuals on the list would have qualified for relocation under the emergency Afghan Relocation and Assistance Programme, known as ARAP, opened as Kabul fell to the
But the leak means many more now have a valid claim for assistance and relocation.
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