Afghanistan

Former marine shares story of how he bluffed Taliban to be last team out of Kabul

A former Royal Marine Commando has shared his story of bluffing and negotiating with the Taliban to get top Japanese diplomats, his team, and himself out of Kabul.

The eyewitness account from 'H' Collins' in his book – Last Team Out Of Kabul – tells of the final six days that he and his team spent in Kabul.

Working as a security contractor, he was tasked with extracting the Japanese embassy's diplomats and staff – when he was given the go-ahead to evacuate, he was leading the only security team remaining in a city being overrun by Taliban fighters.

H's late-night extraction, using the cover of darkness, successfully got the Japanese diplomats to the evacuation point.

However, on returning to his HQ compound, where the remaining ops staff and 72 unarmed Gurkhas waited, they had been tailed back from the airport and Taliban fighters were now surrounding the compound, and later entered.

Speaking to Forces News, he said: "I believe this was a recce. I don't think they wanted anything in particular. For me, they were making an assessment, like 'who is he and what have they got?'.

"So I took that as a show of force. I decided 'ok, you show me yours, I'll show you mine'."

H, on hearing a helicopter fly over, pretended he was in direct communication. "I'm just going to blag it now", he said. "I'm going to make out like I've got all the assets in the world ready to go."

After six days of waiting, his team was disarmed and put on a bus and allowed to leave.

Later Special Forces informed him that three of the Taliban members who had demanded a meeting in the compound had been wearing suicide vests.