come with islamist terrorism because you lost your brother in the bali bomb attack. do you think your government has any idea how dangerous the situation could become now? i think we are slowly waking up to that and i completely agree with generaljohn allen, a close friend of mine, and what they believe will happen now, very sadly, as the terrorists will take full advantage of the vacuum that will be left to return to afghanistan to plot another attack on the scale of 9/11 in order to bookend, if you like, ourtime 9/11 in order to bookend, if you like, our time in the country, to make the very blunt port, of how futile the last two decades have been. you really believe two decades have been. you really believe that? - two decades have been. you really believe that? that what you believe will happen next is that the al-qaeda and other militant islamist groups will
and i think we are seeing huge scenes of desperation play out, but the west should hang its head in shame. we are taking afghanistan to another civil war after two decades. lise war after two decades. use because the war after two decades. use because the chair war after two decades. use because the chair the - because the chair the parliamentary defence committee, you have been in parliament for 16 years, on the conservative benches, the conservative benches, the conservative party has been running the uk foreign policy for more than half of the period in which uk troops have beenin period in which uk troops have been in afghanistan, so when you talk about shame, when you talk about failure, do you acknowledge that your own party must own that failure when it comes to uk policy? we must own that failure when it comes to uk policy? we need to ut this comes to uk policy? we need to put this into comes to uk policy? we need to put this into perspective - comes to uk policy? we need
that we should be as welcome as canada and germany, but, that the burden should be shared among all those countries that participated, but also to support the need during two neighbouring countries which will no doubt have to take a fair burden of this as well. to be clear. fair burden of this as well. to be clear, and again you are an influential conservative mp, it would be your view that for example, as a symbolic first step, the uk government should say to all of the afghans currently in the uk waiting for a decision on their asylum claim, and that is we believe around 3000 at the moment, that they should be given a clear sign that their asylum applications will be approved, simply because the situation in afghanistan has now changed, the taliban is in power, we regard them as an organisation that has conducted abuse over many years. do we need to say, quite clearly, if you are from afghanistan, you make it to the uk, you seek asylum, you will
horizon as well and in this case, the first alarm bells that were bringing was when donald trump gave permission for thousands of taliban prisoners to be released and then made the commitment to return trips home before the deal had been termed. that was the beginning of the end. [30 the beginning of the end. do ou the beginning of the end. do you think the boris johnson you think the borisjohnson government has the bandwidth to understand that they are now, in the very near future, could be a very real surge in the terror threat coming from afghanistan? we know that thousands of prisoners have been newly released from bagram, some of them very dangerous militants. general john allen and afghanistan saying that al-qaeda could be operating openly from the hindu kush region with us forces gone. as you said at the beginning of this interview, you know all too well personally the dangers that
not taking this opportunity to the vacuum, to suggest a fresh coalition is formed before we see the demise of a country that we have been so engaged in what two decades. you that we have been so engaged in what two decades. what two decades. you are a former soldier, what two decades. you are a former soldier, tobias - what two decades. you are a i former soldier, tobias elwood, let mejust read former soldier, tobias elwood, let me just read to you a comment from another former soldier, jack cummings, he was a soldier in the royal engineers, he lost both legs and afghanistan serving with the british army stopper he wrote this on twitter. did i lose my legs for nothing? it looks like it. did my mates die in vain? yep. many emotions are going through my head right now, anger, betrayal, sadness. what would you say to him? it is completely disheartening. the fact that we have so quickly given up to follow the united states, i ve visited helmand province a dozen times over the last ten o