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Ben Wallace told the Mail the UK had urged ‘like-minded’ nations to stay on after US troops withdrew
Britain tried desperately to form a military coalition to support Afghan forces after America pulled out – but Nato allies refused to take part, the Defence Secretary has revealed.
Ben Wallace told the Mail the UK had urged ‘like-minded’ nations to stay on after US troops withdrew.
But after they declined he decided that Britain could not go it alone.
Consequently, Nato states all brought their soldiers home together and the Taliban began an offensive. It controls more than half the country, having taken five provincial capitals since Friday.
It now threatens to take the city of Lashkar Gah in Helmand, where more than 450 British troops were killed.
Schools have been burned and there have been reports of the Taliban reimposing the ban on girls receiving an education and women working that it introduced when it ruled Afghanistan.
It is also said to be kidnapping girls and forcing them to marry its fighters.
On Friday, the Foreign Office advised all British nationals to ‘leave now’ due to the worsening security situation.
Speaking to the Mail, Mr Wallace condemned the United States’s ‘rotten deal’ with the Taliban, signed last year, which was supposed to end more than 18 years of conflict in Afghanistan.
Nato states all brought their soldiers home together and the Taliban began an offensive. It controls more than half the country
He
