At least ten Afghans who helped the West have been killed by Taliban assassins in the week since the government revealed a data leak, it has been claimed.
The killings included four people executed and dumped in a ditch in one incident over the weekend after being forced out of hiding in Iran, according to the Daily Mail.
While it is not clear if any of the individuals were among the thousands of names in the leaked document, experts said that they marked a dramatic increase in killings. “There have been more deaths today,” a source said on Monday.
The leak occurred in February 2022 and included the details of UK special forces and spies, it is understood
TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER RICHARD POHLE
On Monday, it emerged that an independent report, commissioned by the government this year, warned that some of the 24,000 Afghans resettled in Britain “could be radicalised in the UK”.
An inquiry into the Afghan data leak is set to be carried out by parliament’s intelligence watchdog. Lord Beamish, chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament (ISC), said that the cross-party group would launch an investigation after considering defence assessment documents related to the case.
Beamish has previously voiced concern over “serious constitutional issues” raised by the handling of the breach that resulted in the details of 18,714 applicants for the Afghan Relocation and Assistance Policy (Arap) scheme released in 2022.
In a statement on Monday, Beamish said that the committee “has agreed that, once it has considered the requested material, it will conduct an inquiry into the intelligence community’s role and activity in connection with the loss of data relating to Arap applicants in February 2022”.
The ISC, which is made up of MPs and members of the House of Lords, had asked for the release of defence assessments that formed the basis of the superinjunction, as well as other material relating to the Arap scheme.
It argued that under the Justice and Security Act, classification of material was not grounds on which information can be withheld from the committee, given its purpose is to scrutinise the work of the UK intelligence community.
• MoD hid Afghan leak intelligence from MPs
There are also “concerns around the extent to which Afghanistan is becoming a base for a wide range of terrorist groups”, the review by Paul Rimmer, a retired civil servant, found.
Last Tuesday, The Times and other media successfully overturned a superinjunction, revealing a massive data leak of tens of thousands of Afghan applicants to relocation schemes.
An email from the government told Afghans, who helped Britain during its campaign in the country: “We understand this news may be concerning.”
It is understood that the leak also included the names of 100 British special forces soldiers, MI6 spies and military officers, as well as email correspondence from senior government officials.
The superinjunction kept the existence of the £850 million relocation programme for 6,900 Afghans secret from the public and parliament. A further 17,000 have travelled under the main scheme.
The Taliban regained control of Afghanistan in 2021 following the withdrawal of US and Nato forces
SANAULLAH SEIAM/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER RICHARD POHLE
Rimmer found that the influx of Afghans “risks community cohesion”, could drive up homelessness and will put local services under pressure.
Following the overturning of the superinjunction, a senior Taliban official claimed that the leaked list of Afghans who helped Britain had been in the group’s possession since 2022. The official said that the ruling group had been hunting down those named on the so-called “kill list” ever since.
Lawyers for victims of the leak said that their clients faced an uncertain future, with some choosing to go into hiding or trying to escape to Pakistan and Iran. They also raised doubts over the Rimmer review finding that the leaked document “may not have spread nearly as widely as initially feared”.
Rimmer concluded that it was “unlikely” their inclusion on the list would be the sole reason Afghans were targeted, as the Taliban already has access to large amounts of data about the country’s population.
Sean Humber, of Leigh Day, the law firm that is representing 50 Afghans claiming compensation for the leak, said: “There’s still genuine confusion over the extent the Taliban have, or had, [to] the list.
“Legally, these are good claims. There is an obligation to keep people’s sensitive personal information safe, and the government didn’t do it. It’s a serious breach, it is unacceptable and they’ve rightly apologised.”
The Ministry of Defence said: “We will robustly defend against any legal action or compensation. The independent Rimmer review concluded that it is highly unlikely that merely being on the spreadsheet would be grounds for an individual to be targeted, and this is the basis on which the court lifted its superinjunction.”