Desperate Brit dad reunited with family he feared were killed in Kabul airport blast
A DESPERATE Brit dad who feared his family were killed in the Kabul airport suicide blast has been reunited with them. Two of Sidiq Marofahail’s children were pictured on The Sun’s front page clutching their passports. Hours after the photo was taken at least 170 people — including two Britons — were killed in a […]
A DESPERATE Brit dad who feared his family were killed in the Kabul airport suicide blast has been reunited with them.
Two of Sidiq Marofahail’s children were pictured on The Sun’s front page clutching their passports.
Hours after the photo was taken at least 170 people — including two Britons — were killed in a terror attack in the Afghanistan capital.
Pizza shop worker Sidiq feared the worst while making a 4,000-mile dash from Bolton to try to rescue his family,
But yesterday he was back with his daughter Asia, six, and son Tawid, three, after they escaped the carnage unhurt.
Sidiq, 29, was also reunited with wife Sultan Zari and two other children, Aliya, one, and Mustafa, four months.
He told The Sun: “They had been waiting there all day, from early in the morning until almost sunset, when the explosion happened. It was terrifying, my children were so scared.”
Sidiq emigrated to Britain in 2006 and works at a pizza takeaway in Horwich, Lancs. He said he moved from his home in Jalalabad to make a better life and sent money back to his wife.
He said: “When the Taliban took over my country I was very scared for my family. It is not safe so I decided to try to get them home to the UK
“I got in through Uzbekistan and arrived in Kabul on Thursday.
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“I just hope I can get my family out of Afghanistan and take them to England.”
His plea came as the last repatriation flights bound for the UK took off.
British and US troops have retreated from their posts at the airport and the gates have been welded shut, leaving thousands stranded outside.
Read our Afghanistan live blog for the latest updates
Yesterday, PM Boris Johnson told those left behind he would do everything he could to try to help them.
Mr Johnson told them: “We will shift heaven and earth to get you out.
“We will use all the leverage we have with the Taliban to make sure they understand it.
“If they want to have engagement with the West, if they want to have a relationship with us, then safe passage for those (people) is absolutely paramount.”
Mr Johnson also paid tribute to the two Britons and the child of a Briton who were confirmed to have been killed in the terror attack on Thursday
He said: “Our thoughts today are very much with their families and their loved ones. I think what their loss really underlines is the urgency of getting on and concluding operations in the way that we are.
“We have never seen anything like it in our lifetimes.”
The three British-linked fatalities — a teenage boy and two adults — are from three separate families.
One Briton was also among the dozens injured and was due to be airlifted out of the country.
Another is an Afghan child under the age of ten, who is related to one of the two dead Britons. Both are believed to have serious injuries and they are not being named at this stage.
The US, UK and Australia had urged people wanting to travel not to go to Kabul airport because of the imminent risk of a “highly lethal” terror attack
At least 11 US Marines, a US Navy medic and one other US servicemen were killed in the single biggest loss of life for American forces since a helicopter crashed in Afghanistan in 2011. Another 18 US troops were wounded in the suicide blast.
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said yesterday: “I was deeply saddened to learn that two British nationals and the child of another British national were killed by yesterday’s terror attack, with two more injured.
“These were innocent people and it is a tragedy that as they sought to bring their loved ones to safety in the UK they were murdered by cowardly terrorists.” He said the attack underlined why Britain was “doing all we can to get people out”.
Mr Raab went on: “We will not turn our backs on those who look to us in their hour of need, and we will never be cowed by terrorists.”
Former Major General Charlie Herbert called Britain’s retreat a “betrayal”.
And Tory MP Tom Tugendhat insisted there had been “a complete failure to believe in the principles we claim to advocate”.
The US and UK said the airlift was entering its final stages yesterday and involved flying out the people who had already been admitted to the airport.
President Joe Biden vowed to avenge the attack but insisted US troops would finish the retreat on August 31, as the Taliban have demanded.
He declared: “We will not forgive. We will not forget. We will hunt you down and make you pay.”
Meanwhile the UN’s World Health Organisation warned it was running out of medicine in the country.
'ABANDONED BY LAME DUCK JOE'
By Trevor Kavanagh, Associate Editor
COMETH the hour, cometh the man, they say. But amid the shocking slaughter of soldiers and civilians in Kabul on Thursday, that man is clearly not American President Joe Biden.
As shattered bodies were carted away in wheelbarrows, “Sleepy Joe” could do no more than bury his head in his hands and threaten impotent revenge.
“Know this,” he intoned. “We will not forgive. We will not forget. We will hunt you down and make you pay.”
How will he do that exactly, having cut and run, leaving American weapons and warplanes on the ground?
US-led forces, scrambling out of Afghanistan as fast as their transport jets can carry them, are no longer in any position to function in this benighted country, still less make anyone pay.
It is now clear Biden has not simply abandoned the long-suffering Afghan people to the Taliban.
He has left them to the mercy of even more barbarous Islamist killers who believe the Taliban are too soft.
ISIS-K make Taliban rapists and throat-slitting assassins look like lily-livered amateurs.
Afghanistan has been left to swap 20 years of comparative freedom for endless civil war.
Appalled Americans who put their faith in this political geriatric have woken abruptly to the realisation he is a dud. A failure. A lame duck for as long as he remains in the White House.
But that will be of no consolation whatsoever to the millions of innocent men, women and children he has left in the lurch.