Afghanistan ‘heading towards civil war’ and Al-Qaeda will ‘probably come back’ amid instability, Ben Wallace warns

‘Failed states around the world lead to instability, lead to a security threat to us and our interests,’ defence secretary says

Afghanistan is “heading towards civil war” and Al-Qaeda will “probably come back” with the country becoming a breeding ground for instability after the withdrawal of coalition troops, Ben Wallace has warned.

Following the announcement that the UK was sending 600 troops to the region to carry out an emergency airlift of civilians, the defence secretary said the Taliban had the “momentum” as it sized several key cities.

Most embassy staff, other British nationals, and Afghans who have been given refuge in Britain, are among around 3,000 who will be evacuated in an operation that commences at weekend.

Speaking on BBC Breakfast, Mr Wallace warned the country was “heading towards civil war” and said he had concerns that in failed states “the breeding ground for both poverty and indeed terrorism indeed grows”.

Asked whether he was worried that the Taliban’s resurgence in Afghanistan would lead to terrorism in the future as a result of the instability in the middle eastern country, Mr Wallace told Sky News he was “absolutely worried that failed states are breeding ground for those types of people”.

He added: “It’s why I said I felt this was not the right time or decision to make because of course Al-Qaeda will probably come back, it certainly would like that type of breeding ground. That is what we see — failed states around the world lead to instability, lead to a security threat to us and our interests.

“But yes I’m concerned. We do have capabilities to protect ourselves, even after leaving Afghanistan.”

The cabinet minister also hit out at the deal reached by the former US president Donald Trump and the Taliban in Doha, Qatar, in February 2020, to withdraw from Afghanistan was a “mistake”.

“We’ll all as the international community probably pay the consequences of that, but when the United States as the framework nation took that decision — meant that we had to leave as well.”

He later added: “I think that deal that was done in Doha was a rotten deal, I’m on the record as saying that because what it effectively told, it told the Taliban that wasn’t winning that they were winning and it undermined the government of Afghanistan.”

Following the announcement on Thursday evening that the UK would send in troops to the region to evacuate civilians, Conservative MPs reacted angrily at the UK’s decision to withdraw from Afghanistan.

Tobias Ellwood, the chair of the Commons Defence Committee and former Tory minister, posted on social media: “What would Churchill say? This is not our finest hour. What happened to global Britain and America is back?

“The largest high tech military alliance ever — defeated by an insurgency armed with mines RPGS and AK47s. We can and must do better.”

He added: “It’s not too late for a collation to remain to avoid a civil war. But it should be the PM making the calls to allies and the foreign secretary rallying nations and the UN security council. Let’s publicly state the UK will stay if partners join us.”

Former defence minister Johnny Mercer added that it was “deeply humiliating” to watch the situation in Afghanistan, warning: “[Joe] Biden has made a huge mistake here, but also we have a role.

“This idea we cannot unilaterally and support the Afghan security forces is simply not true. The political will to see through enduring support to Afghanistan has not been there and a lot of people are going to die because of that, and for me that is extremely humiliating”.

“It’s a world tragedy and we are going to reap the repercussions of this over many years to come,” he stressed.

The Conservative chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Tom Tugendhat, who served in Afghanistan, said the decision to withdraw from the region “is like a rug pulled from under the feet of our partners”.