LONDON (AP) — Britain’s Foreign Office abandoned many of the nation’s allies in Afghanistan and left them to the mercy of the Taliban during the fall of the capital, Kabul, because of a dysfunctional and arbitrary evacuation effort, a whistleblower alleged Tuesday.

In devastating evidence to a parliamentary committee, Raphael Marshall said thousands of pleas for help via email were unread between Aug. 21 and Aug. 25. The former Foreign Office employee estimated that only 5% of Afghan nationals who applied to flee under one U.K. program received help. He said that at one point, he was the only person monitoring the inbox.

“There were usually over 5,000 unread emails in the inbox at any given moment, including many unread emails dating from early in August,” he wrote to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, which is investigating Britain’s chaotic departure from Afghanistan. “These emails were desperate and urgent. I was struck by many titles including phrases such as ‘please save my children’.”

Marshall said some of those left behind had been killed by the Taliban.

One of Marshall’s most explosive allegations is a claim that British officials spent time and energy arranging the evacuation of almost 200 dogs and cats from a Kabul animal shelter run by Nowzad, a charity founded by former Royal Marine Pen Farthing.

Marshall claimed Foreign Office staff had “received an instruction from the Prime Minister to use considerable capacity to transport Nowzad’s animals.” He claimed British soldiers were put at risk to get the animals out of Kabul.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s spokesman, Max Blain, said the allegation was “entirely untrue” and neither Johnson nor his wife Carrie, an animal-welfare advocate, had been involved in helping the animals leave.

He said Farthing and his animals left Afghanistan on a privately chartered plane which was given clearance by British officials.

“We are confident that at no point clearance for that charter plane interrupted our capability to evacuate people,” Blain said.

As the Taliban took power in August, the United States, the U.K. and other countries rushed to evacuate Afghans who had worked with Western forces and others at risk of violent reprisals.

Britain managed to airlift 15,000 people out of the country in two weeks, and the government says it has since helped more than 3,000 others leave Afghanistan.

But an Afghan Resettlement Scheme announced by the government in August with the goal of bringing another 20,000 people to Britain has yet to get underway.

Former Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, who was moved from the Foreign Office to become Justice Secretary after the crisis, defended his actions.

“Some of the criticism seems rather dislocated from the facts on the ground, the operational pressures that with the takeover of the Taliban, unexpected around the world,” he told the BBC. “I do think that not enough recognition has been given to quite how difficult it was.”

Tom Tugendhat, a Conservative lawmaker who heads the foreign affairs committee, said Marshall’s testimony “raises serious questions about the leadership of the Foreign Office.” The committee is due to quiz senior Foreign Office civil servants later Tuesday.

The Taliban stormed across Afghanistan in late summer, capturing all major cities in a matter of days, as Afghan security forces trained and equipped by the U.S. and its allies melted away. The Taliban took over Kabul on Aug. 15.

Tens of thousands of Afghans attempted to leave by air or land, fearing the country could descend into chaos or that the Taliban would reimpose the harsh interpretation of Islamic law that they relied on when they ran Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001. At the time, women had to wear the all-encompassing burqa and be accompanied by a male relative whenever they went outside. The Taliban banned music, cut off the hands of thieves and stoned adulterers.

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Without other political factions and women serving in the government, the Taliban seem unlikely to win international recognition as the legitimate leaders of Afghanistan. And without such recognition, the Afghan state is unable to tap billions of its funds frozen abroad, leaving it virtually bankrupt at a time of immense humanitarian need.

The Taliban received sharp criticism last week after they announced a Cabinet made up entirely of men from their movement, including several on international terror lists. Taliban leaders previously had promised broader representation.

Amir Khan Mutaqi, a longtime Taliban negotiator named as foreign minister, appeared Tuesday at his first news conference since becoming a member of the interim government. But he gave little indication of whether the Taliban would bend to international pressure.

Asked if the Taliban would include women or ethnic and religious minorities in the government, Mutaqi answered, “We will decide in time” but did not offer a commitment. He underscored that the current government is ruling on an interim basis and said that when a permanent one is formed, “we will take into account what the people want.” He would not give a timetable for a permanent government.

“We are taking everything step by step. We have not said how long this Cabinet will last,” Mutaqi said. After the withdrawal of Western troops and the Taliban’s sudden return to power last month, the U.S. and its allies have used money, potential recognition and warnings of isolation to pressure them away from repeating their repressive rule of the 1990s. At that time, the Taliban imposed a harsh interpretation of Islamic law, including severe restrictions on women and minorities.

Mutaqi, responding Tuesday to a question about the eventual holding of elections, replied that other countries must not interfere in Afghanistan’s internal issues, a comment he repeated several times during the news conference.

However, the foreign minister did give the first confirmation from the interim government of the new Cabinet’s intention to honor a deal the Taliban reached with the United States last year.

Under the deal, which opened the way for the American withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Taliban promised to break ties with al-Qaida and other militant groups and ensure they don’t threaten other countries from the movement’s territory.

“We will not allow anyone or any groups to use our soil against any other countries,” Mutaqi said.

While ruling Afghanistan during the late 1990s, the Taliban sheltered al-Qaida and its chief, Osama bin Laden.

Their refusal to hand over bin Laden and other al-Qaida members after the Sept. 11 terror attacks prompted the U.S. to launch a military assault which ousted the Taliban and led to a 20-year war in Afghanistan.

Many experts remain skeptical the Taliban have broken ties with al-Qaida since they reached the 2020 withdrawal deal with the Trump administration. But al Qaida has been significantly weakened, and Washington has made clear its top priority is preventing Islamic State attacks from Afghanistan. The Taliban have battled with the Islamic State since its emergence in Afghanistan in 2014. A burgeoning IS affiliate has claimed responsibility for most recent attacks, including the horrific bombing outside the Kabul airport that killed 13 U.S. service personnel and 169 Afghans during last month’s chaotic evacuations.

Still, U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Scott Berrier, who leads the Defense Intelligence Agency, said at a national security summit Tuesday that al-Qaida could begin to threaten the United States from Afghanistan within one to two years, echoing warnings that were issued before the U.S. withdrawal.

Meanwhile, the broader terms of the world’s relationship with the Taliban remain unsettled a month after they swept into Kabul on Aug. 15 and Afghanistan’s U.S.-backed president, Ashraf Ghani, fled the presidential palace. There also appear to be divisions within the Taliban over the next steps. Some leaders are said to be more open to compromise, while others insist on resolute Taliban domination.

The makeup of the Taliban government poses a dilemma for the United Nations as it prepares to open a new session of the U.N. General Assembly. Several of the interim ministers, including Mutaqi, Prime Minister Mohammad Hasan Akhund and Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani, are on the U.N.’s so-called black list of international terrorists and terrorist financers.

Haqqani is also wanted by the FBI for questioning in connection with attacks in the Afghan capital during the last two decades. As the interim interior minister, he oversees Afghanistan’s police and has already called former officers back to work. While some have returned, including most traffic police, many are reluctant.

Mutaqi urged the U.N. to remove the Taliban ministers from the watch list. “The list has no logic,” he said.

When the Taliban last ruled, the U.N. refused to recognize their government and instead gave Afghanistan’s seat to the previous, warlord-dominated government of President Burhanuddin Rabbani, who eventually was killed by a suicide bomber in 2011. It was Rabbani’s government that brought bin Laden to Afghanistan from Sudan in 1996.

This time around, it is not clear whether the seat will be reserved for a representative of Ghani’s government. The president’s sudden departure shocked the political leadership in Kabul, including former President Hamid Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah, the government’s chief negotiator, who were still negotiating with the Taliban to form an interim government.

The governments of the U.S. and other countries promised millions in new humanitarian aid for the U.N. to spend in Afghanistan as the country faces increasing hunger and economic collapse, but they suggested a future willingness to help could depend on the actions of the Taliban.

During a second day of tough congressional questioning about the Afghanistan withdrawal, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the Biden administration would hold the Taliban, to their promises not to allow Afghanistan to be used again as a base for terrorist attacks.

Mutaqi said the Taliban-led government seeks good relations with foreign nations but insisted they must not interfere in its affairs. He also called for international donors to send more aid and international banking institutions to continue their projects in Afghanistan.

“Afghanistan is poor. It needs all the help” the world can give, Mutaqi said, promising that foreign aid would be distributed without corruption.

He also said that all of Afghanistan’s embassies operating abroad have been told to continue their operations. He promised Afghans would be allowed to leave the country and said it was the job of the Taliban government to provide passports to its citizens.

—

Lee Keath contributed from Cairo.

KATHY GANNON | AP News

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Like his two most immediate predecessors, President Donald Trump marked the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks in a speech at the Pentagon and, like them, still unable to end America’s longest war, in Afghanistan.

Trump’s 9/11 speech on Wednesday came just five days after he called off U.S. talks with the Taliban, abruptly ending nearly a year of hopeful negotiations by a State Department envoy who said he was on the “threshold” of a peace agreement aimed at ending the conflict.

It has been 18 years since al-Qaida hijackers commandeered four U.S. commercial airliners and crashed them into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Nearly 3,000 people were killed in the largest attack on American soil.

Like Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush, Trump remembered the victims, first responders and U.S. troops who have battled in Afghanistan, where the Taliban hosted al-Qaida leaders as they plotted 9/11.

“For the families who join us, this is your anniversary of personal and permanent loss,” Trump said. “It’s the day that has replayed in your memory a thousand times over. The last kiss. The last phone call. The last time hearing those precious words, ‘I love you.’”

“Then the attack, the anguish of knowing your family member had boarded one of these flights or was working at the World Trade Center or serving right here at the Pentagon,” he said. “You waited. You prayed. You answered that most dreaded call, and your life changed forever.”

Trump said he went to the scene of the downed twin towers and saw the first responders working.

“I went down to ground zero with men who worked for me to try to help in any little way that we could,” Trump said. “We were not alone. So many others were scattered around trying to do the same. They were all trying to help.”

Some of Trump’s statements about his 9/11 experiences cannot be verified, including claims that he sent construction crews to help clear the site, that he had “hundreds” of friends die at ground zero and that he witnessed television coverage of Muslims in the U.S. cheering the destruction.

The moment of silence at the Pentagon is traditionally observed at 9:37 a.m., the time when a plane was flown into the building. But this year, the anniversary was observed 10 minutes late, at 9:47 a.m., with Trump running behind schedule.

In his speech, he had tough words for the Taliban following the end of peace talks.

“If anyone dares to strike our land, we will respond with the full measure of American power and the iron will of the American spirit,” Trump said.

“If, for any reason, they come back to our country, we will go wherever they are and use power the likes of which the United States has never used before, and I’m not even talking about nuclear power,” Trump said without elaborating on what he meant.

Despite Trump’s verbal threats, his envoy, Zalmay Khalilzad, has been sitting across the table from Taliban leaders in Doha, Qatar, for months discussing a U.S. troop withdrawal and Taliban guarantees to keep Afghanistan from again becoming a launch pad for global terror attacks.

Those talks came to an abrupt halt last weekend when Trump tweeted that he had canceled a proposed meeting with the Taliban and members of the Afghan government at the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland.

Many Afghans fear his canceling the talks will mean more carnage as the U.S. and Taliban, as well as Afghan forces, step up their offensives and civilians die in the crossfire.

Trump said he canceled the talks after the Taliban detonated a car bomb on Sept. 5 and killed two troops — one American and one Romanian — and 10 civilians in a busy diplomatic area near the U.S. Embassy in Kabul.

Trump’s continued reference to ending the talks after one American service member was killed has upset many Afghans, who witness near-daily attacks.

As America mourned 9/11, weary Afghans are watching their own toll from the aftermath continue to rise exponentially. The Taliban and U.S. and Afghan forces are all to blame.

For the first time, more Afghan civilians have been killed by international and Afghan forces than by the Taliban and other insurgents, the United Nations said of the first three months of this year, with thousands more wounded by insurgent attacks.

Several hours after Trump left the Pentagon memorial, Bush, who was president during the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, visited for a separate, private wreath-laying. Bush was joined by former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who was in his Pentagon office when the plane hit the building.

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