Prince William 'helped Afghan officer he knew from Sandhurst flee Taliban to Britain'
3 September 2021, 10:26
The Duke of Cambridge helped an Afghan officer he knew from Sandhurst flee the Taliban in Kabul and return to the UK amid the evacuations, it has emerged.
Prince William, 39, intervened after hearing that the officer - who he met while at the military academy in Berkshire - was trapped in Kabul with his family.
He asked his naval officer, Rob Dixon, to make some calls to personnel in the region and get them into the airport, The Telegraph reported.
Major Andrew Fox, a former paratrooper, commended the Duke's involvement.
"I myself got 2 Para to rush out into the crowd and grab someone for me," he told the newspaper.
"It's fully in line with what we get taught in the Army in terms of values, loyalty, respect for others, all that good stuff. We're trained to help where we can."
All of the group were eligible to leave the country were unable to due to the chaotic scenes that had unfolded throughout the evacuation process.
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British Armed Forces discuss 'complex' evacuation effort in Kabul
The royal's intervention came after the UK and US withdraw the last of their troops from Afghanistan at the end of August.
The final US military flight left Kabul just before midnight local time on 31 August, leaving behind up to 200 Americans and thousands of desperate Afghans.
Evacuation co-ordinator Major General Christopher Donahue and acting US ambassador to Afghanistan Ross Wilson were the last to board the final plane.
The UK's Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab, previously told LBC the number of people left behind was in the "low hundreds" and pledged that the UK "will live up to all the commitments we've made".
However, at Wednesday's Foreign Affairs Committee, Mr Raab said he could not give "a definitive answer" as to the true number of those left in Afghanistan.
