British drain: London mistakenly declassified the data of Afghans who collaborated with it

The British media reported on the consequences of the information leak that occurred in 2022. Then one of the soldiers, who was checking applications for asylum in the UK from former fighters of the Afghan special forces and other people who collaborated with London, mistakenly sent the entire base of almost 19 thousand people to his trusted representatives in Kabul. The declassification of these Afghans has put their lives and the lives of their loved ones at risk. Now the defendants in the list are preparing a class action for hundreds of millions of pounds against the British government, demanding compensation for the damage caused. Details can be found in the Izvestia article.

Negative consequences

"Over 200 former Afghan soldiers and policemen were identified and killed by the Taliban after the personal data of Afghans who collaborated with the British authorities was leaked," The Daily Telegraph reports.

According to the publication, the killings began after a list containing information about approximately 19,000 Afghans associated with the United Kingdom got online in February 2022. At the same time, the authors of the publication emphasize that it remains unclear whether all the victims were from the leaked list, since the British government does not disclose the names of the victims.

The newspaper refers to the data of two representatives of the Taliban, who were assigned to track down and detain individuals from this list. It is also reported that a special unit carried out arrests and executions in some provinces.

Among the victims was a colonel, a former Helmand provincial police commander named Tur Jan. He was allegedly shot dead by Taliban representatives near a mosque in June 2024. This province was the main base of British troops during the NATO mission in Afghanistan.

Also on the list of dead is military officer Muzamil Necrabi, who was assassinated in July 2022 in Kapisa province. He later died while being transported to a hospital. It also mentions former police commander Hayatullah Nizami, whose body was found near a Taliban base in Takhar province in February 2024.

The newspaper notes that the Taliban has repeatedly denied attacks on former security personnel. However, "independent investigations have refuted this information," the newspaper writes.

Meanwhile, The New York Times conducted an investigation that found that at least 500 former Afghan military and government officials were killed or disappeared during the first six months of Taliban rule.

The Taliban themselves have sometimes been accused of committing crimes by "renegade militants," but the American newspaper claims that the killings were systematic and premeditated.

Global leak

A global leak of classified information occurred in February 2022, when a military man who was checking asylum applications in Britain from former fighters of the Afghan special forces and other people who collaborated with London mistakenly sent the entire base of almost 19 thousand people to his trusted representatives in Kabul.

This list included not only the names of the people themselves who collaborated with the British authorities, but also the data of their loved ones — a total of over 33 thousand people. In addition, the document contained information about dozens of British intelligence officers and special forces soldiers operating in Afghanistan.

Ben Wallace, then the head of the Ministry of Defense, demanded an injunction against the dissemination of information about the leak, and the publications were eventually deleted.

The conservatives in power at the time, led by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, continued to seek an extension of the injunctions, keeping the information secret. The Labor Party, led by Keir Starmer, who won the elections last summer, initially also intended to hide the incident.

The new prime Minister called for taking care of the safety of the people on this list, and it was decided to organize the relocation of more than 24,000 people. The evacuation took place under the strictest secrecy and cost the country's budget 400 million pounds. About 4 thousand people were taken out.

The current British Minister of Defense, John Healey, admitted that the data leak had led to fatal consequences. According to him, the authorities do not rule out that this caused significant harm to London's former allies in Afghanistan.

After an internal audit, the authorities decided to stop hiding information about this incident and recently provided the parliament with details of what happened.

Meanwhile, a group of lawyers from Barings Law began cooperating with the Afghans from the published list and their relatives. According to them, they have already received over a thousand requests, and dozens more are coming daily. In them, the plaintiffs demand compensation from the British authorities.

According to lawyers, the amount of the class action will amount to hundreds of millions of pounds.

What do the experts think

Omar Nessar, a researcher at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, noted in an interview with Izvestia that sources in various international organizations, including the United Nations, periodically report on massacres in Afghanistan.

— This can happen on the initiative of individuals, middle—level commanders and for various reasons, for example, motivated by revenge. So it really could have happened. However, we have no facts proving that this is some kind of deliberate policy of the Afghan authorities. At the same time, I admit that the data leak may not have had anything to do with these reprisals," the expert is sure.

According to the Afghanist, in Kabul, these names from the British list were most likely already known.

— Many people probably already knew about them, because the current authorities have their own database, they have gained control over the databases of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, defense departments and intelligence. I think the reasons for what happened should be looked for in Britain itself. Most likely, this is the result of some kind of internal political intrigues, interdepartmental confrontations," the political scientist explained.

According to the expert, the current relations of the British authorities with the Taliban are very cool.

"The United States has interaction with them, higher—level contacts than the British," Nessar concluded.

Hannah Keenan, Deputy Director of the UK Institute of Public Administration, believes that the British government needs to learn from this crisis.

"The data leak in Afghanistan is the result of an unsuccessful evacuation, from August 14 to 28, 2021, the British government evacuated 15,000 Afghans and British citizens from Afghanistan, an impressive number in such a short time, but it does not justify the "inexcusable negligence of the leadership," the expert explained.

According to the political scientist, "the evacuation of Afghans was terrible."

"Emails from Afghans requesting evacuation were sent to six mailboxes, there was no system for processing or tracking correspondence, many remained unanswered and unread, and despair reigned when officials tried to restore order," the specialist explained.

She stressed that this led to two consequences.

"The first is the unsatisfactory quality of data processing and security protocols for obviously confidential information. The second is partly a symptom of the first, because people believed that the best way to support the Afghans was to bypass government procedures, where an employee of the Ministry of Defense sent names to a contact person who, as he “hoped, would help verify the statements of the Afghans.” If the crisis had been responded to more effectively, the results would have been different," the analyst concluded.