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Britain’s scandalous treatment of Afghan special forces who fought alongside UK laid bare in damning report
A defence select committee report has concluded there were "serious failings" and "material defects" in how the Ministry of Defence handled sanctuary applications from former Afghan special forces soldiers, known as the Triples, who fought alongside UK troops. MPs found the MoD "did not adequately understand or apply" evidence of the units' relationship with Britain, resulting in thousands of cases being wrongly rejected as officials rushed to clear a backlog, leaving hundreds of former commandos abandoned to the Taliban after being beaten, tortured or killed.
The scandal was first exposed in November 2023 by The Independent alongside Lighthouse Reports and Sky News, which showed the Triples had been paid directly by the UK government despite MoD denials. Following a review of around 2,000 applications ordered under the Labour government, 884 decisions had been overturned by March 2026, with roughly 30 per cent found eligible due to their past service and a further 300 eligible because their data was exposed in a separate MoD data breach. The committee said this "striking rate of correction" showed the review addressed genuine failings rather than routine tidying-up, and that the MoD now bears "a special responsibility" to those wrongly refused, some of whom have since been left to flee Afghanistan unaided.
In short
- MPs find MoD wrongly rejected Afghan special forces' UK sanctuary claims
- 884 of roughly 2,000 reviewed decisions overturned by March 2026
- MoD now told approved Afghan families to flee Taliban rule unassisted
Explained simply
The Triples are Afghan soldiers who fought directly alongside British special forces during operations in Afghanistan. After the UK withdrew and the Taliban regained control, these soldiers applied for sanctuary in Britain, fearing persecution because of their service with UK forces.
The Ministry of Defence rejected thousands of applications in a process marked by serious failures. Officials did not properly understand or verify the soldiers' relationship with Britain, and many cases were dismissed without adequate examination of the evidence, leaving hundreds of these former commandos without the asylum they had sought.
A government review found that when these cases were reconsidered, roughly one in three of the rejected applications should have been approved, showing the scale of the initial errors. Some of those denied protection faced severe consequences in Afghanistan, while others were forced to flee without official support.
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