Triple jeopardy: the betrayal of Afghanistan's finest

Thousands of elite Afghan forces were blocked from settling in the UK. Some may have witnessed British war crimes. Ministers ask if the two are connected.

- By Ceri Thomas

They were called the Triples because their units' call signs were 333 and 444. They were the best of Afghan soldiers, trained and funded by the UK and often working with British special forces.

After the US-led withdrawal from Afghanistan in the chaotic summer of 2021 and the Taliban takeover, the Triples were clearly in danger. The British government set up a Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (Arap) to allow them to resettle in the UK.

In the initial run, virtually every one of more than 2,000 applications by a member of the Triples to resettle in the UK was turned down. Single-handedly, one UK special forces officer rejected 1,585.

Unexpectedly, the Arap scheme now forces the government to confront some of the biggest questions confronting the British military and the politicians who oversee it. Did units of British special forces commit war crimes in Afghanistan? Was there an effort through layers of the military and Westminster to hide what had happened? And why was the leadership of the UK's special forces apparently so willing to abandon the Afghan soldiers who fought alongside them?

At the high court in London last week, a case brought by a former Triples officer has been trying to fix what it sees as some of Arap's remaining flaws. But the real meaning of the scheme isn't so much what it does as what it says about a recent chapter in the UK's history which, day by day, looks more troubling.

For more than two years, in a courtroom close to the one in which the Triples had their day this week, the Afghanistan Inquiry has heard evidence that, between 2010 and 2013, unarmed Afghan men and boys were first captured and later killed by units of the SAS. Others were said to have been shot in their beds. When senior officers saw explanations for why the killings had happened as they did, they found them implausible, sometimes laughable.