The Afghan leak: what next?
The Story
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4 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 21 July 2025
⏱️ 17 minutes
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Summary
After last week’s shocking revelations that a list of tens of thousands of Afghans who’d helped the British was leaked, has that already led to deaths - and what happens now?
This podcast was brought to you thanks to the support of readers of The Times and The Sunday Times. Subscribe today: http://thetimes.com/thestory
Guest: Tom Witherow, News Reporter, The Times.
Host: Manveen Rana.
Producer: Olivia Case.
Clips: Times Radio, BBC, Sky, ITV, YouTube / Times News.
Photo: Getty Images.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | From The Times and the Sunday Times, this is the story. I'm Manvian Rana. |
| 0:07.0 | It was the culmination of an almost two-year-long legal battle. |
| 0:16.0 | Last week, the Times and other media organisations won the fight to have a super injunction |
| 0:22.8 | that had been used to cover up a huge government data leak overturned. |
| 0:29.3 | The leak risked the lives of tens of thousands of Afghans who'd worked with the British military, |
| 0:36.0 | and they weren't even told they were in danger. |
| 0:39.6 | The government, with no oversight or accountability, had secretly spent at least £850 million |
| 0:46.8 | on dealing with the consequences. It was a scandal when it broke, and now we have the fallout. |
| 0:57.1 | Now, a lawyer says that the brother of an elite Afghan soldier who was on the list was killed by the Taliban on Friday. |
| 1:02.6 | It has been revealed that the personal details of UK special forces and spies were included in the huge data leak. |
| 1:10.1 | This was a significant development, actually. |
| 1:13.0 | Not just the Taliban that are looking at these names, |
| 1:15.2 | it's also Al-Qaeda, ISIS, the Russians, the Chinese. |
| 1:19.6 | It's helping them build a picture up as to who our special forces are. |
| 1:22.6 | This episode raises significant constitutional issues. |
| 1:26.6 | Ministers who served under the party opposite |
| 1:29.4 | have serious questions to answer |
| 1:31.4 | about how this was ever allowed to happen. |
| 1:37.4 | How did this happen? |
| 1:40.0 | How much danger could many Afghans now be in |
| 1:43.2 | and how much more will this cost the government? |
| 1:54.8 | The story today. |
... |
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