
'Chaotic' and slow British response left thousands of Afghans unable to flee the Taliban, whistleblower claims
CNN
Thousands of desperate Afghans were unable to flee the Taliban following the fall of Kabul because the British government's response to the crisis was disorganized and slow, a whistleblower has claimed.
Britain's then-Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab took several hours to respond to urgent requests, while Prime Minister Boris Johnson insisted vital resources were used to evacuate animals instead of people, an ex-staffer at the UK's Foreign Office alleged in written testimony to Parliament published on Tuesday.
His damning account paints a picture of dysfunction at the heart of Britain's government during one of the West's most urgent crises in recent times, and suggests that the department's bureaucratic complacency may have had fatal consequences.

Andrew Cuomo and Zohran Mamdani bitterly clashed over age and experience Thursday in the final debate before New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary, as Cuomo warned that electing the progressive state assemblyman is unprepared for the job and Mamdani hammered the former governor over scandals during his time in Albany.

On Wednesday, the Department of Homeland Security posted a striking graphic on its official X account. Uncle Sam, a symbol of American patriotism, is depicted nailing a poster to a wall that reads, “Help your country… and yourself.” Written underneath the poster is the sentence, “REPORT ALL FOREIGN INVADERS,” and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement hot line.