More than 200 former Afghan soldiers and police officers have reportedly been identified and killed by the Taliban since the leak of personal data belonging to Afghans who worked with British forces, according to an investigation by The Daily Telegraph.
In a report published Wednesday, the British newspaper revealed that the killings began after a list containing details of approximately 19,000 UK-affiliated Afghans was leaked online in February 2022. While it remains unclear whether all the victims were on the leaked list, The Telegraph noted that the UK government has not released the names of those affected.
Citing two Taliban officials, the report said a special Taliban unit known as “Yarmok 60” was assigned to track down and detain individuals named on the list. The unit has reportedly carried out arrests and executions across several provinces.
Among the victims was Colonel Toor Jan, a former police commander in Helmand province, who was allegedly shot dead by Taliban fighters outside a mosque in June 2024. A month later, a former army officer was reportedly killed in Khost province.
Other victims include Muzamil Nejrabi, a military officer shot in July 2022 in Kapisa province, who later died while being transported to hospital, and former police commander Hayatullah Nizami, whose bloodied body was discovered near a Taliban base in Takhar province in February 2024. Nizami had disappeared the night before and had been working for a municipal contractor in Taloqan following the fall of Kabul.
Helmand province, where Colonel Jan served, was the main base for British forces during the NATO mission in Afghanistan and the site of prolonged fighting between UK troops and the Taliban.
While the Taliban has repeatedly denied targeting former security personnel, independent investigations have contradicted these claims. A 2021 investigation by The New York Times found that at least 500 former Afghan military and government officials had been killed or had disappeared within the first six months of Taliban rule. The report described how some individuals were misled by the Taliban’s so-called amnesty letters, only to later be detained, tortured, or executed.
Taliban officials have at times blamed rogue fighters for the abuses, but The New York Times concluded that the killings were systematic and deliberate.
Human Rights Watch has also documented more than 100 cases of killings and enforced disappearances of former security personnel in just four of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces, further raising alarm over the scale of the crackdown.
On Wednesday, UK Defence Secretary John Healey acknowledged the potentially fatal consequences of the 2022 data leak and confirmed that the government could not rule out harm to former Afghan allies. The leak, which the Ministry of Defence attributed to an error by an unnamed employee, has triggered serious concerns over the safety of those left behind.
In response to the breach, the British government has committed approximately £7 billion to mitigate the fallout, including launching relocation efforts for thousands of affected Afghans.
