Behind The Lines with Arthur Snell

When I worked at the Provincial Reconstruction Team in Helmand Province, I was largely based at the Forward Operating Base in Lashkar Gah - the main city of Helmand. There, amid the dust and noise of an active military campaign, there was a small, beautifully tended garden inside the base. I’m going to be honest and say that I was too preoccupied with my own job ever to ask myself who was responsible for its upkeep- even as I enjoyed that little slice of tranquility and beauty almost every day. 

Had I stopped to find out, I would have learned that the gardener was Shaista Gul, a local Afghan citizen whose hard work created a beautiful garden in the most unlikely place. By talking on this job, Shaista, and the thousands of Afghans, many of them interpreters, that served Britain during its involvement in the NATO mission, became enemies of the Taliban, facing constant threats, and worse, including murder. 

After the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021, some lucky Afghans were able to escape on evacuation flights from Kabul. But most were left behind and thousands made their way to Pakistan, including many that had been assured of resettlement in the UK. This month, the government of Pakistan has decided to expel all undocumented Afghans in the country believed to be around 1.5 million people. Of these, around 2,000 have been accepted as eligible to come to Britain in recognition of their past service with our forces. But thanks to a cost-saving policy made by Rishi Sunak last year, these people were kept in Pakistan in preference to bringing them to the UK where the migration system is under acute strain. Now these people, who risked their lives serving our country, find themselves threatened with being returned to Afghanistan by the Pakistani government. 

The story of Britain’s treatment of those Afghans that worked with us during our involvement in that country is the subject of Larisa Brown’s book, the Gardener of Lashkar Gah. Larisa is a defence correspondent, currently with The Times and previously working for the Daily Mail. She joined me, just as Pakistan was preparing to start its campaign of expulsions, to talk about Shaista Gul and the wider history of Britain’s betrayal of its Afghan friends.

You can find Larisa’s book here: https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/gardener-of-lashkar-gah-9781399411028/ 

I am on https://arthursnell.substack.com/