THE Taliban has chillingly warned it will hunt down thousands of Afghan refugees on a ‘kill list’ after the UK’s huge data breach.
Details of almost 20,000 refugees fleeing the terrorist organisation were leaked after a Royal Marine mistakenly sent a top secret email to the wrong people.
AFPDetails of almost 20,000 Afghan refugees fleeing the terrorist organisation were leaked[/caption]
PAAfghan refugees leaving Kabul in 2021[/caption]
GettyThe list contained details of 20,000 Afghans whose country had been taken over by the Taliban[/caption]
Thousands of the refugees had to be secretly relocated to the UK after the blunder, which was covered up by the Ministry of Defence and is set to cost Britain up to £7 billion.
The majority of those on the secret list were flown into Stansted airport via unmarked planes as part of a £850m scheme.
But now Taliban officials have claimed the details of all the refugees have been known to them since 2022, after they allegedly sourced the information from the internet.
Speaking to The Telegraph, they said: “A special unit has been launched to find them and make sure they do not work with Britain.
“We’ve been calling and visiting their family members to track them down.
“They believe these individuals are still working with the British, and say the problem must be dealt with.
“These people are seen as traitors, and the plan has been to find as many of them as possible.
“Whoever leaked that file is actually helping us. There may be a general amnesty in place, but spies cannot escape justice.”
It means that the clumsy click and the subsequent cover-up – which has now proven to be ineffective – has potential to be the most expensive data breach in history.
The list also included names of their individual UK sponsors including SAS and MI6 spies and at least one Royal Marine Major General.
Although Defence Secretary John Healey has said that the cost of relocating the Afghans and their families will total £400 million, the final cost could be even higher.
Defence Secretary Healey’s figure includes £100 million in compensation for the data breach and £300 million to relocate them to Britain.
Mr Healey offered a “sincere apology” in the face of the huge error and added that “no government wishes to withhold information from the British public”.
He later said: “The full number of Afghan arrivals under all schemes have been reported in the regular Home Office statistics, meaning that they are already counted in the existing migration figures.”
However, government sources have estimated that the lifetime cost of supporting the 20,000 individuals and their families could hit £7 billion – if the rescued Afghans decide to sue the government for leaking their data.
Only around 10 to 15 per cent of the individuals on the list would have qualified for relocation under the emergency Afghan Relocation and Assistance Programme, known as ARAP, opened as Kabul fell to the Taliban.
Many of the Afghans who were flown into the country as part of Operation Rubific were initially housed at MoD homes or hotels until permanent accomodation was found.
The leak put countless of people left in Afghanistan at risk, as the country’s ruthless Taliban rulers tried to hunt and kill anyone who had helped UK forces.
A number of named individuals have been killed since the leak. Others were tortured and beaten.
But sources insisted it was impossible to prove conclusively whether it was a direct result of the data breach.
The epic MoD blunder was kept Top Secret for almost three years by a legal super injunction but was finally made public yesterday.
A source said: “The MoD kept this secret and denied these people the chance to change their numbers, emails, locations or take any measures to protect themselves.”
Critics accused the MoD of hiding the leak from the British public in a bid to conceal the potential costs.
An MoD source said it was “human error and not a cyber hack or hostile state actor”.
ReutersThousands of Afghan refugees have been marked on a ‘kill list’[/caption]
PADefence Secretary John Healey offered a “sincere apology” after the huge error[/caption]
The leak, covered up by the MoD, cost Britain £7 billion after it was sent to the wrong peopleGetty Images Published: [#item_custom_pubDate]
