DOCUMENTS revealing confidential details of Afghans who worked for the British in Kabul have been abandoned in the embassy.
A Times journalist uncovered the documents during a tour of the former British embassy building, accompanied by the Taliban.
It is reported that the paperwork contained names, addresses and phone numbers of people who were working locally with the embassy. They were freely available for anyone to see, including the Taliban militants who now control the area.
Many who worked with occupying forces are in fear for their lives following the Taliban takeover, as they are worried they will be seen as trators for working with foreign governments and could be killed.
UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said Boris Johnson “will be asking some questions” about how the papers were left unsecure, adding: “Clearly it’s not good enough.”
Labour said Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has “serious questions to answer” and that the destruction of sensitive materials should have been a “top priority”.
Among the documents were details of three Afghan employees and eight family members, including five children, who were caught in the crowds at Kabul airport unable to access the British-controlled section of the facility. They were, however, eventually found and rescued.
The fate of at least two job applicants whose details were abandoned at the embassy remains unknown.
Mr Wallace told LBC radio: “We’ll find out and get to the bottom of it. The evidence looks pretty clear.
“Clearly it’s not good enough, simple as that.
“I think the Prime Minister will be asking some questions, I think we need to understand, quite rightly, how that happened.”
Former foreign and defence secretary Lord Hammond said there would have been a “big exercise in destroying documents” but any failures would be serious.
The Tory peer told Times Radio: “If some documents slipped through that net it’s extremely serious, a very serious lapse of security.”
The blunder was apparently made as staff hastily left the embassy when the Taliban reclaimed Kabul and ignored evacuation protocols of shredding and destroying all data that could compromise local workers.
Shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy urged the Government to “urgently assess” the individuals who have been exposed by the breach and whether operations may have been “compromised”.
“The Foreign Secretary has claimed he was too busy overseeing operational decisions to call the Afghan foreign minister. This incident raises questions about what precisely he was doing in the hours before Kabul fell to the Taliban,” the Labour MP said.
“The destruction of sensitive materials and the safe evacuation of the embassy should have been a top priority.”
The Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) has acknowledged the apparent error, but said staff had tried to destroy sensitive material before leaving the embassy.
“We have worked tirelessly to secure the safety of those who worked for us, including getting three families to safety,” an FCDO spokesman said.
“During the drawdown of our embassy every effort was made to destroy sensitive material.”
Meanwhile, the Foreign Affairs Select Committee will carry out an inquiry into the incident, according to its chairman, Tom Tugendhat.
The Conservative MP said: “The evidence is already coming in.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel