🔗 Share this article Taliban Employed Left-Behind UK Gear to Locate Local Nationals Who Worked Alongside Allied Forces, Investigation Is Told An informant has revealed the Afghan leak inquiry that the UK failed to secure confidential equipment permitting the militant group to track down local individuals that had served with allied troops. Information Leak Puts Numerous at Risk The whistleblower, known as Person A, explained that people concerned by the information breach were instructed to relocate and switch their phone numbers to protect themselves from the Taliban. MPs are currently examining the UK government's management of a massive disclosure of private information affecting approximately 19k Afghans who had requested to relocate to Britain to escape the regime. How the Leak Was Discovered A spreadsheet including their personal data, comprising names, contact details and occasionally household data, was mistakenly released by a worker working at British military command in February 2022. The breach came to light in late 2023, when the names of nine people who had applied to relocate to Britain were posted on online platforms. Regime's Resources “There seems to be a misunderstanding that the Taliban do not have comparable resources that allied forces use,” she told MPs. “We left it all behind in Afghanistan; it's in their hands. Should they obtain your phone number, they can locate your exact position. That is what the unit achieved.” Under inquiry about if militant forces owned sophisticated technology, the source declared: “They possess all resources.” Consequences of the Information Leak Preliminary research presented to the committee indicated that no fewer than forty-nine family members and colleagues of individuals impacted by the incident had been executed. A superinjunction regarding the leak was put in force in late 2023 and prevented all details about it from being made public until mid-2025. Security Recommendations Because she was restricted, the source and the volunteer organization she was working with informed individuals at risk they were working with that they had “suspicions that certain devices had been breached”. “We recommended that they moved where feasible and changed their phone numbers. That constituted the crucial data that, if the Taliban acquired this information, would cause identification and capture,” the source testified. Challenged Assessments The whistleblower disputed that internal investigation performed by an ex-government employee had been incorrect to determine that the possession of the information by the regime was “minimally impact current risk levels”. “The thing to remember is that these Afghans are not confronting militant forces; they live secretly. All concerns relate to former occupations.” Person A described terrible treatment suffered by at-risk Afghans, involving electric shock torture, interrogation techniques, and violent assaults. “We have had four-year-old children who have had their arms broken to force the family to say where someone is,” the whistleblower revealed.