Ben Wallace discusses possibility of return to Afghanistan

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The Afghan Government is struggling to keep control against Taliban insurgents, with the fall of Kabul expected within the next few weeks. Prime Minister Boris Johnson is holding an emergency Cobra meeting to discuss the escalating situation, after the news that the UK will be sending 600 troops to evacuate the 6,000 remaining British citizens still in the country.

Mr Johnson said: “In the course of the next few days, we will see the vast bulk of embassy staff officials come back, and we’ll step up our efforts to bring back those Afghans who have helped us, helped the UK, helped international forces throughout the last 20 years, in additions to the 2,000 who have already come out.”

He added: “To help them, we’re sending out another team of home office officials to help them with their applications and get them out.”

Mr Johnson is being urged to recall parliament as the crisis deepens, with the Shadow Defence Secretary Lisa Nandy saying MPs should be summoned back to the Commons if the Government “cannot step up now and show that it has a clear strategy”.

The US and Nato allies, including the UK, have spent the last 20 years equipping and training Afghan forces for a threat like the Taliban, but this has quickly unravelled since the ongoing withdrawal of troops.

The Afghan security forces boast a number of more than 300,000, on paper at least, including the Afghan army, Air Force and police.

But now that more than 1,000 Afghan civilians have been killed in the past month, and tens of thousands more displaced, the growing prospect of another internationally-backed conflict may loom.

The Prime Minister has said the sacrifices made by British troops in Afghanistan have not been “in vain”, but warned there was no “military solution” to prevent the resurgence of the Taliban.

Speaking to reporters, Mr Johnson said it was the “inevitable logical consequence” of the decision of the US administration of President Joe Biden to complete the final pull-out of American troops by September.

Are we going to war in Afghanistan?

While it is currently impossible to say if countries will be sending troops to fight in Afghanistan, is highly likely that the UK will follow the US if it chooses to deploy troops there.

Defence Secretary Ben Wallace told the BBC the country is “heading towards total civil war”, and that the UK would reserve the right to intervene if terror plots against the UK were planned in Afghanistan.

He told Sky News: “I’m absolutely worried that failed states are breeding grounds for those types of people.

“Al Qaeda will probably come back.”

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Elsewhere, Nader Nadery, a senior member of the Afghan Peace Negotiation Team in the USA, expressed grave concern over the rapidly worsening situation while speaking to CNBC on Wednesday.

He said: “If the Taliban advances militarily, the region will be burned.

“This war will not be contained within the borders of Afghanistan.”

Asked what he saw as the most immediate danger to the international community, Mr Nadery, who lived through decades of turmoil in Afghanistan, described a potential swell in terrorist activity far beyond the country fuelled by a sense of victory over Western forces.

The fear is of “a consolidation of power of all the terrorist groups [under] the umbrella of Taliban and the space that the Taliban is providing for them.

Mr Nadery said: “The slogan now of every single terrorist group with the jihadist mind is ‘now that we have defeated the United States and its 42 allies in Afghanistan, we can go after them anywhere’.”

“That slogan is a clear danger that will enable groups like the Daesh (ISIS), Al Qaeda and others to rally more people, because they’re on the march, they feel triumphant.”

“Members of the Taliban told us in our face that they have defeated the United States and the NATO allies,” he continued.

“And that’s not going to be an easy slogan for them to give up, it will be a danger to any disenchanted young in the region and in a broader global arena, where they will join forces around that slogan, and this is not an easy danger.”

Mr Johnson said: ”It is very difficult obviously, but I think the UK can be extremely proud of what has been done in Afghanistan over the last 20 years.

“I think we have got to be realistic about the power of the UK or any power to impose a military solution – a combat solution – in Afghanistan.

“What we certainly can do is work with all our partners in the region around the world who share an interest with us in preventing Afghanistan once again becoming a breeding ground for terror.”

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