Elite Afghan commandos ‘betrayed’ by the British and left behind to be hunted down

Published

2 years ago

November 1, 2023

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“I feel betrayed by the British.”

Once part of an elite Afghan special forces unit, Shaheen and his two brothers spent years fighting side-by-side with UK commandos.

But when Kabul fell to the Taliban in the chaos of August 2021, so many of his comrades were left behind. His brother Qahraman was hunted down and murdered.

“We were like one family,” he says. “I cannot bear to hear about my colleagues hiding now in Afghanistan, their lives in danger.”

Sky News can reveal that dozens of soldiers who served in two Afghan special forces units that were set up, trained and paid for by the British have since been murdered or tortured by the Taliban.

Working with Lighthouse Reports and The Independent, Sky News has verified dozens of cases in which the Taliban has targeted and physically harmed these former commandos who risked their lives alongside the British.

Shaheen told Sky News how for years he and his two brothers were part of Commando Force 333 (CF333), an Afghan special forces unit established by the British in 2002.

His name and the name of his brother have been changed in this story for his family’s protection.

In the mid-2000s, there were still pockets of Taliban fighters dotted around Afghanistan, despite their regime being toppled by the coalition of international forces, including the US and UK.

Known as the Triples, CF333 and fellow unit ATF444 embarked on joint missions with the British to battle the remaining Taliban – and received salaries from the British government for doing so, it can be revealed for the first time.

The camp where they and British commandos were based became a home for Shaheen and his brothers, he tells Sky News.

They took pride in their work and were involved in special operations around Afghanistan, putting themselves in danger for their country.

“Although they were younger than me, my brothers and I were so close that we were friends,” Shaheen says.

Chaos as Kabul fell to the Taliban

With the US and UK announcing they were pulling out of Afghanistan after two decades, Taliban fighters swept across the country and it wasn’t long before they were at the gates of Kabul.

“I didn’t know what to do,” Shaheen says. “I didn’t go back home because I would be a top target for the Taliban.

“So for two days, I was wandering in the streets of Kabul, not knowing when I would be killed.”

Along with Qahraman and some of their comrades, Shaheen was able to get inside the airport, the last part of the city not under Taliban control. Their other brother had managed to leave Afghanistan by crossing the border elsewhere.

“The conditions were horrible at the airport,” Shaheen says. “I saw women and children being stampeded upon. People were beaten with batons, it was horrendous.”

While Shaheen was allowed on a flight out of Afghanistan, his brother was turned away.

Qahraman hunted down by the Taliban

Shaheen says after Qahraman left the airport “he was observed and followed”, and went to their sister’s home.

He did not leave the house for 10 days. When he finally did, a group of people shot him.

Asked if he blames the British for his brother’s death, Shaheen says: “He did a lot of hard work for the British. When he was kicked out of the airport, he became a target.”

Now living in Birmingham with his wife and children in a cramped house, Shaheen says he is a shell of his former self.

“I lost everything,” he says.

“I don’t even have 10% of what I was. Even here, I don’t have anything to be proud of.”

‘Unjust’ reason to deny Triples entry to UK

Despite serving shoulder-to-shoulder with British troops, the majority of the Triples were not evacuated in August 2021 and have subsequently been rejected under the UK’s scheme for relocating Afghans who worked with the British – known as the Afghan Relocation and Assistance programme (ARAP).

Most have been told this is because they did not work “alongside, in partnership with or closely supporting… a UK government department” – despite compelling evidence to the contrary.

One British veteran, who served alongside the Triples for five years, said the relationship between the Afghan and UK units was a “completely symbiotic partnership”.

“We were completely embedded,” the veteran said. “We were one unit. You couldn’t work more hand in glove with the British than they did.”

Charlie Herbert, a former British Army major general who served in Afghanistan, said denying the Triples entry to the UK on the basis that they did not work alongside, work in partnership with or closely support the UK armed forces, is “both disingenuous and unjust”.

He added: “I can think of no other Afghan security forces who were more closely aligned to the UK than 333 and 444, nor who more loyally or bravely supported our military objectives.”

Another veteran, who served alongside the CF333s, said: “They put their lives on the line, properly fighting with us, for us. They were the national force doing the UK government’s bidding. That cannot be more aligned with the UK’s strategic interests.”

Conversations with current and former UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) sources suggest that the UK Special Forces department was effectively “blocking” the Triples from being accepted under ARAP.

It is unclear why.

Ministry of Defence: We have never issued blanket decisions

When approached, the MoD did not deny that UK Special Forces was refusing to approve the cases.

An MoD spokesperson said: “The UK government has made an ambitious and generous commitment to help eligible people in Afghanistan. So far, we have brought around 24,600 people to safety, including thousands of people eligible for our Afghan schemes.

“The MoD has never issued blanket decisions on applications from any cohort who have applied to the ARAP scheme. All eligibility decisions are made on a case-by-case basis against strict criteria taken in accordance with the Immigration Rules and based on the evidence provided by individuals.”

Shaheen, like so many of his surviving comrades, wants to know why they were left behind and for the apparent block on Triples applications to be lifted.

But for so many, it is already too late. They have already been hunted down by the Taliban.

“There’s a saying in my country,” Shaheen says. “On one hand, there’s a cliff – and on the other, is a tiger waiting for you, so you don’t have much choice.”

Story in cooperation with: May Bulman, investigations editor at Lighthouse Reports, Fahim Abed, investigations editor at Lighthouse Reports and Monica C Camacho, OSINT reporter at Lighthouse Reports

Additional reporting by Katy Scholes, Sky News international producer

World

Israeli soldier describes arbitrary killing of civilians in Gaza

Published

7 hours ago

July 7, 2025

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Israeli soldier describes arbitrary killing of civilians in Gaza

An Israeli reservist who served three tours of duty in Gaza has told Sky News in a rare on-camera interview that his unit was often ordered to shoot anyone entering areas soldiers defined as no-go zones, regardless of whether they posed a threat, a practice he says left civilians dead where they fell.

“We have a territory that we are in, and the commands are: everyone that comes inside needs to die,” he said. “If they’re inside, they’re dangerous you need to kill them. No matter who it is,” he said.

Speaking anonymously, the soldier said troops killed civilians arbitrarily. He described the rules of engagement as unclear, with orders to open fire shifting constantly depending on the commander.

The soldier is a reservist in the Israel Defence Force’s 252nd Division. He was posted twice to the Netzarim corridor; a narrow strip of land cut through central Gaza early in the war, running from the sea to the Israeli border. It was designed to split the territory and allow Israeli forces to have greater control from inside the Strip.

He said that when his unit was stationed on the edge of a civilian area, soldiers slept in a house belonging to displaced Palestinians and marked an invisible boundary around it that defined a no-go zone for Gazans.

“In one of the houses that we had been in, we had the big territory. This was the closest to the citizens’ neighbourhood, with people inside. And there’s an imaginary line that they tell us all the Gazan people know it, and that they know they are not allowed to pass it,” he said. “But how can they know?”

People who crossed into this area were most often shot, he said.

“It was like pretty much everyone that comes into the territory, and it might be like a teenager riding his bicycle,” he said.

The soldier described a prevailing belief among troops that all Gazans were terrorists, even when they were clearly unarmed civilians. This perception, he said, was not challenged and was often endorsed by commanders.

“They don’t really talk to you about civilians that may come to your place. Like I was in the Netzarim road, and they say if someone comes here, it means that he knows he shouldn’t be there, and if he still comes, it means he’s a terrorist,” he said.

“This is what they tell you. But I don’t really think it’s true. It’s just poor people, civilians that don’t really have too many choices.”

He said the rules of engagement shifted constantly, leaving civilians at the mercy of commanders’ discretion.

“They might be shot, they might be captured,” he said. “It really depends on the day, the mood of the commander.”

He recalled an occasion of a man crossing the boundary and being shot. When another man came later to the body, he too was shot.

Later the soldiers decided to capture people who approached the body. Hours after that, the order changed again, shoot everyone on sight who crosses the “imaginary line”.

At another time, his unit was positioned near the Shujaiya area of Gaza City. He described Palestinians scavenging scrap metal and solar panels from a building inside the so-called no-go zone.

“For sure, no terrorists there,” he said. “Every commander can choose for himself what he does. So it’s kind of like the Wild West. So, some commanders can really decide to do war crimes and bad things and don’t face the consequences of that.”

The soldier said many of his comrades believed there were no innocents in Gaza, citing the Hamas-led 7 October attack that killed around 1,200 people and saw 250 taken hostage. Dozens of hostages have since been freed or rescued by Israeli forces, while about 50 remain in captivity, including roughly 30 Israel believes are dead.

He recalled soldiers openly discussing the killings.

“They’d say: ‘Yeah, but these people didn’t do anything to prevent October 7, and they probably had fun when this was happening to us. So they deserve to die’.”

He added: “People don’t feel mercy for them.”

“I think a lot of them really felt like they were doing something good,” he said. “I think the core of it, that in their mind, these people aren’t innocent.”

In Israel, it is rare for soldiers to publicly criticise the IDF, which is seen as a unifying institution and a rite of passage for Jewish Israelis. Military service shapes identity and social standing, and those who speak out risk being ostracised.

The soldier said he did not want to be identified because he feared being branded a traitor or shunned by his community.

Still, he felt compelled to speak out.

“I kind of feel like I took part in something bad, and I need to counter it with something good that I do, by speaking out, because I am very troubled about what I took and still am taking part of, as a soldier and citizen in this country,” he said

“I think the war is… a very bad thing that is happening to us, and to the Palestinians, and I think it needs to be over,” he said.

He added: “I think in Israeli community, it’s very hard to criticise itself and its army. A lot of people don’t understand what they are agreeing to. They think the war needs to happen, and we need to bring the hostages back, but they don’t understand the consequences.

“I think a lot of people, if they knew exactly what’s happening, it wouldn’t go down very well for them, and they wouldn’t agree with it. I hope that by speaking of it, it can change how things are being done.”

We put the allegations of arbitrary killings in the Netzarim corridor to the Israeli military.

In a statement, the IDF said it “operates in strict accordance with its rules of engagement and international law, taking feasible precautions to mitigate civilian harm”.

“The IDF operates against military targets and objectives, and does not target civilians or civilian objects,” the statement continued.

The Israeli military added that “reports and complaints regarding the violation of international law by the IDF are transferred to the relevant authorities responsible for examining exceptional incidents that occurred during the war”.

On the specific allegations raised by the soldier interviewed, the IDF said it could not address them directly because “the necessary details were not provided to address the case mentioned in the query. Should additional information be received, it will be thoroughly examined.”

The statement also mentioned the steps the military says it takes to minimise civilian casualties, including issuing evacuation warnings and advising people to temporarily leave areas of intense fighting.

“The areas designated for evacuation in the Gaza Strip are updated as needed. The IDF continuously informs the civilian population of any changes,” it said.

World

Australian mother guilty of murdering three people with poisonous mushrooms

Published

9 hours ago

July 7, 2025

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Australian mother guilty of murdering three people with poisonous mushrooms

An Australian mother has been found guilty of murdering her estranged husband’s parents and an aunt by serving them a beef wellington laced with poisonous mushrooms.

Erin Patterson, 50, invited her former parents-in-law, Don and Gail Patterson, both 70, and Gail Patterson’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, 66, to the fatal lunch on 29 July 2023.

The mother-of-two, from the state of Victoria in southern Australia, has also been convicted of the attempted murder of Mrs Wilkinson’s husband Reverend Ian Wilkinson.

All four fell ill after eating a meal of beef wellington, mashed potatoes and green beans at Patterson’s home in the town of Leongatha, the court was told.

Prosecutors said Patterson knowingly laced the beef pastry dish with deadly death cap mushrooms, also known as Amanita phalloides, at her home.

The guests ate their meals off four large grey dinner plates, while Patterson ate from a smaller, tan-coloured plate, the court heard.

Mrs Wilkinson and Mrs Patterson died on Friday 4 August 2023, while Mr Patterson died a day later.

Reverend Wilkinson spent seven weeks in hospital but survived.

Her estranged husband Simon Patterson, with whom she has two children, was also invited to the lunch and initially accepted but later declined, the trial heard.

The jury was told that prosecutors had dropped three charges that Patterson had attempted to murder her husband, who she has been separated from since 2015.

Reverend Wilkinson said that immediately after the meal, Patterson fabricated a cancer diagnosis, suggesting the lunch was put together so that she could ask them the best way to tell her children about the illness.

The prosecution said she did this to justify the children’s absence.

The defence did not dispute that Patterson lied about having cancer.

The trial attracted intense interest in Australia – with podcasters, journalists and documentary-makers descending on the town of Morwell, around two hours east of Melbourne, where the court hearings took place.

A sentencing date is yet to be scheduled.

What makes death cap mushrooms so lethal?

The death cap is one of the most toxic mushrooms on the planet and is involved in the majority of fatal mushroom poisonings worldwide.

The species contains three main groups of toxins: amatoxins, phallotoxins, and virotoxins.

From these, amatoxins are primarily responsible for the toxic effects in humans.

The alpha-amanitin amatoxin has been found to cause protein deficit and ultimately cell death, although other mechanisms are thought to be involved.

The liver is the main organ that fails due to the poison, but other organs are also affected, most notably the kidneys.

The effects usually begin after a short latent period and can include gastrointestinal disorders followed by jaundice, seizures, coma, and eventually, death.

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World

Israel attacks Houthi targets at three ports and power plant in Yemen

Published

13 hours ago

July 7, 2025

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Israel attacks Houthi targets at three ports and power plant in Yemen

Israel says its military has attacked Houthi targets at three ports and a power plant in Yemen.

Defence minister Israel Katz confirmed the strikes, saying they were carried out due to repeated attacks by the Iranian-backed rebel group on Israel.

Mr Katz said the Israeli military attacked the Galaxy Leader ship which he claimed was hijacked by the Houthis and was being used for “terrorist activities in the Red Sea”.

It came after the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) issued an evacuation warning for people at Hodeidah, Ras Issa, and Salif ports – as well as the Ras al Khatib power station, which it said is controlled by Houthi rebels.

The IDF said it would carry out airstrikes on those areas due to “military activities being carried out there”.

Afterwards, Mr Katz confirmed the strikes at the ports and power plant.

Earlier in the day, a ship was reportedly set on fire after being attacked in the Red Sea.

A private security company said the assault, off the southwest coast of Yemen, resembled that of the Houthi militant group.

It was the first such incident reported in the vital shipping corridor since mid-April.

The vessel, identified as the Liberian-flagged, Greek-owned bulk carrier Magic Seas, had taken on water after being hit by sea drones, maritime security sources said. The crew later abandoned the ship.

The Houthi rebels have been launching missile and drone attacks against commercial and military ships in the region in what the group’s leadership called an effort to end Israel’s offensive against Hamas in Gaza.

Between November 2023 and January 2025, the Houthis targeted more than 100 merchant vessels with missiles and drones, sinking two of them and killing four sailors.

The Houthis paused attacks in a self-imposed ceasefire until the US launched an assault against the rebels in mid-March.

That ended weeks later and the Houthis have not attacked a vessel, though they have continued occasional missile attacks targeting Israel.

A renewed Houthi campaign against shipping could again draw in US and Western forces to the area.

The ship attack comes at a sensitive moment in the Middle East.

A possible ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war hangs in the balance and Iran is weighing up whether to restart negotiations over its nuclear programme.

It follows American airstrikes last month, which targeted its most-sensitive atomic sites amid an Israeli war against the Islamic Republic that ended after 12 days.

How did the Houthis come to control much of Yemen?

A civil war erupted in Yemen in late 2014 when the Houthis seized Sanaa.

Worried by the growing influence of Shia Iran along its border, Saudi Arabia led a Western-backed coalition in March 2015, which intervened in support of the Saudi-backed government.

The Houthis established control over much of the north and other large population centres, while the internationally recognised government based itself in the port city of Aden.