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Here at last! Longest-serving translator working for British troops is safe with his family in UK after returning from Afghanistan... as Defence Secretary claims Nato countries snubbed plea to stay on after US withdrawal

Just last week Ricky and his family were terrified, hiding from the Taliban in a Kabul suburb listening to bursts of gunfire and intermittent bomb blasts.

But last night the interpreter and his wife, three sons and two daughters were able to start planning for a new life from the safety of a Manchester quarantine hotel.

The 38-year-old said: ‘We have gone from many dark years of being frightened, wondering if the next attack would be aimed at us or if we would return when we went outside to being, and feeling, safe.

‘It is a wonderful feeling but it is still hard to believe it is really true.’

Ricky is the longest-serving translator working for British forces – a veteran of 18 years. Three years ago he was ambushed by two suspected Taliban gunmen as he returned home and his vehicle was hit by four bullets. 

Just last week Ricky and his family were terrified, hiding from the Taliban in a Kabul suburb listening to bursts of gunfire and intermittent bomb blasts

Just last week Ricky and his family were terrified, hiding from the Taliban in a Kabul suburb listening to bursts of gunfire and intermittent bomb blasts

He first applied for relocation to the UK in 2017 only to be turned down – the first of several rejections before finally being accepted in December last year.

And now he has joined dozens of interpreters and their families in coming to Britain – among 1,400 Afghans to have arrived since the third week of June.

Nine ‘Freedom Flights’ – chartered planes bringing Afghans to safety in the UK – have so far arrived, with a further 14 planned. 

Ricky’s arrival is a significant victory for the Mail which began calling for his rescue four years ago. They are pictured above at their quarantine hotel during exercise

Ricky’s arrival is a significant victory for the Mail which began calling for his rescue four years ago. They are pictured above at their quarantine hotel during exercise

On Saturday the Daily Mail reported a ‘triple victory’ on translators with Defence Secretary Ben Wallace confirming interpreters in ‘third countries’ as well as those who worked with Special Forces have now been approved for sanctuary, while translators with contentious applications will have their cases re-assessed.

Ricky’s arrival is a significant victory for the Mail which began calling for his rescue four years ago. 

He said: ‘I would like to thank you the because you told the British people what was happening with the interpreters who risked their lives.’

A Government spokesman said Britain’s Afghan relocation policy was ‘one of the most generous in the world’, adding: ‘Nobody’s life should be put at risk because they supported the UK Government in Afghanistan.’

Ricky is the longest-serving translator working for British forces – a veteran of 18 years. He is pictured left

Ricky is the longest-serving translator working for British forces – a veteran of 18 years. He is pictured left

By Mark Nicol, Defence Editor for the Daily Mail

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.

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

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

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.

He said it could lead to the Taliban taking over again – and Britain having to return for another military campaign.

Asked if the UK could do more to help besieged Afghan forces, he said: ‘Well, I did try talking to Nato nations, but they were not interested, nearly all of them.

‘We tried a number of like-minded nations. Some said they were keen, but their parliaments weren’t. It became apparent pretty quickly that without the United States as the framework nation it had been, these options were closed off.

‘All of us were saddened, from the Prime Minister down, about all the blood and treasure that had been spent, that this was how it was ending.’

He said the option of a unilateral UK presence was considered, adding: ‘We could have put a force there but we would have had to take ourselves out of a lot of other places around the world. The possibility... was not viable.’

The Defence Secretary said Donald Trump’s deal with the Taliban early last year convinced the militants they had been victorious.

Under the deal signed by Mr Trump and continued by President Joe Biden, the US and Nato pledged to withdraw within 14 months. 

The Taliban agreed not to target Western troops and to keep Al Qaeda and other extremists out. The militants upheld their side of the bargain – but have waged war against Afghan forces.

Mr Wallace said: ‘The deal was a rotten deal, it is flawed.

‘It saddens me that the deal picked apart a lot of what had been achieved in Afghanistan over 20 years. We’ll probably be back in ten or 20 years. But acting now is not possible. The damage was done with the deal.’

He said the departure of Nato was an indictment of the short-term strategies of Western states, adding: ‘Again the West has been exposed as thinking you fix problems, not manage problems.’

General Sir Nick Carter, head of the Armed Forces, has urged the UK to stand ‘shoulder to shoulder’ with Afghan security forces.

Yesterday, Tory MP Tobias Ellwood, chairman of the Commons defence committee, condemned the ‘shabby withdrawal’, ‘abandoning the country to the very insurgency that drew us there’.

He wrote in The Mail on Sunday: ‘Afghanistan might once again become a terror state. This is the country that brought us 9/11.’

Former Army commander General Sir Richard Barrons told BBC Radio 4’s The World This Weekend yesterday: ‘We run the risk of terrorist entities re-establishing in Afghanistan to bring harm in Europe and elsewhere.’

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