ANTHONY LOYD | EXCLUSIVE

British embassy left details of Afghan staff for Taliban to find

While militants looked on, Anthony Loyd found startling paperwork abandoned by British officials in their retreat

A Taliban commander and two bodyguards pose in a British embassy villa with a painting of an SAS mission by the artist James Hart Dyke
A Taliban commander and two bodyguards pose in a British embassy villa with a painting of an SAS mission by the artist James Hart Dyke
ANTHONY LOYD FOR THE TIMES
The Times

Foreign Office staff left documents with the contact details of Afghans working for them as well as the CVs of locals applying for jobs scattered on the ground at the British embassy compound in Kabul that has been seized by the Taliban.

The papers identifying seven Afghans were found by The Times on Tuesday as Taliban fighters patrolled the embassy. Phone calls to the numbers on the documents revealed that some Afghan employees and their families remained stranded on the wrong side of the airport perimeter wall days after their details were left in the dirt in the haste of the embassy’s evacuation on August 15.

The fate of Afghans who worked alongside western diplomats and troops, and who may face reprisals after being left