Ex-Marine reveals Afghan friends were 'executed outside their homes'

Ex-Royal Marine shares tragic image of Afghanistan military friends who were ‘executed outside homes in Kandahar’ as ‘rampaging’ Taliban went door-to-door killing anyone ‘associated with government’

• James Glancy uploaded an image of himself with Afghan military in February 
• He said the Afghans had been ‘executed outside their homes in Kandahar’
• Mr Glancy also accused the country’s President of ‘abandoning the people’

A former Royal Marine Commando has shared a picture of Afghans who he says were ‘all executed outside their homes in Kandahar on Thursday’.

James Glancy uploaded an image, taken in February, of himself holding recording equipment with a colleague in Afghanistan, along with a group of men clad in the country’s military combat uniform.

Replying to his own post revealing the horrific incident, which has been retweeted more than 10,000 times, Mr Glancy also wrote ‘the same happened in Spin Baldak’, referencing a graphic video showing ‘scores of dead bodies on the roads’ in the region. 

Filmmaker Mr Glancy, who did three tours of Afghanistan and is now director of conservation charity Veterans For Wildlife, had posted: ‘The Afghans we were with in February, were all executed outside their homes in Kandahar on Thursday.’

He followed up by responding to a report revealing that the President and Vice President of the country had left the capital. 

He accused them of ‘Abandoning their people’. 

Mr Glancy’s stark revelation comes after reports earlier this week revealed Taliban fighters are going door-to-door and forcibly marrying girls as young as 12 and forcing them into sex slavery. 

Meanwhile terrified locals who fled the city of Kunduz – captured by the Taliban last week – have told of reprisal attacks carried out by jihadist fighters who hunted down anyone linked to the government and beheaded or executed them.

James Glancy uploaded an image, taken in February, of himself holding recording equipment with a colleague in Afghanistan, along with a group of men clad in the country’s military combat uniform

Filmmaker Mr Glancy, who is also director of conservation charity Veterans For Wildlife, followed up by responding to a report revealing that the President and Vice President of Afghanistan had left the capital Kabul. He accused them of ‘Abandoning their people’

And today Afghanistan’s embattled president left the country, joining his fellow citizens and foreigners in a stampede fleeing the advancing Taliban and signaling the end of a 20-year Western experiment aimed at remaking Afghanistan.

The Taliban, who for hours had been on the outskirts of Kabul, announced soon after they would move further into a city gripped by panic where helicopters raced overhead throughout the day to evacuate personnel from the U.S. Embassy. 

Smoke rose near the compound as staff destroyed important documents, and the American flag was lowered. Several other Western missions also prepared to pull their people out.

Afghans fearing that the Taliban could reimpose the kind of brutal rule that all but eliminated women’s rights rushed to leave the country as well, lining up at cash machines to withdraw their life savings. 

The desperately poor – who had left homes in the countryside for the presumed safety of the capital – remained in their thousands in parks and open spaces throughout the city.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken rejected comparisons to the U.S. pullout from Vietnam, as many watched in disbelief at the sight of helicopters landing in the embassy compound to take diplomats to a new outpost at Kabul International Airport.

‘This is manifestly not Saigon,’ he said on ABC’s ‘This Week.’

The American ambassador was among those evacuated, said officials who spoke condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss ongoing military operations. He was asking to return to the embassy, but it was not clear if he would be allowed to.

Taliban fighters stand armed with guns in Laghman province after making major gains across Afghanistan in the wake of the US departure

Smoke rises next to the US Embassy in Kabul after Taliban fighters entered the outskirts of the Afghan capital

A Taliban fighter rides a motorbike through a street in Laghman province. A US defense official has warned it could be only a matter of days before the insurgent fighters take control of Kabul

President Ashraf Ghani flew out of the country, two officials told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to brief journalists. Abdullah Abdullah, the head of the Afghan National Reconciliation Council, later confirmed that Ghani had left.

‘The former president of Afghanistan left Afghanistan, leaving the country in this difficult situation,’ Abdullah said. ‘God should hold him accountable.’

In a stunning rout, the Taliban seized nearly all of Afghanistan in just over a week, despite the billions of dollars spent by the U.S. and NATO over nearly two decades to build up Afghan security forces. Just days earlier, an American military assessment estimated it would be a month before the capital would come under insurgent pressure.

The fall of Kabul marks the final chapter of America’s longest war, which began after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks masterminded by al-Qaida’s Osama bin Laden, then harbored by the Taliban government. A U.S.-led invasion dislodged the Taliban and beat them back, though America lost focus on the conflict in the chaos of the Iraq War.

For years, the U.S. has been looking for an exit for the war. Washington under then-President Donald Trump signed a deal with the Taliban in February 2020 that limited direct military action against the insurgents. That allowed the fighters to gather strength and move quickly to seize key areas when President Joe Biden announced his plans to withdraw all American forces by the end of this month.

On Sunday, the insurgents entered the outskirts of Kabul but initially remained outside of the city’s downtown. Meanwhile, Taliban negotiators in the capital discussed the transfer of power, said an Afghan official who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. 

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details of the closed-doors negotiations, described them as ‘tense.’

It remained unclear when that transfer would take place and who among the Taliban was negotiating. 

The negotiators on the government side included former President Hamid Karzai, leader of Hizb-e-Islami political and paramilitary group Gulbudin Hekmatyar and Abdullah, who has been a vocal critic of Ghani.

Karzai himself appeared in a video posted online, his three young daughters around him, saying he remained in Kabul.

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