A veteran who was trapped in Kabul has revealed how he managed to slip through the Taliban checkpoints during his daring escape.
60-year-old Lloyd Comer is a former Royal Engineers officer from Nottingham, England, who put his life on the line in an attempt to get past the Taliban checkpoints and reach the international airport in Kabul in time to get evacuated.
As the man, who worked for a transport maintenance company working for the Afghan Police and the Afghan National Army, revealed in an interview with MailOnline, he contacted the Foreign Office after getting trapped in the city following the Taliban takeover of Kabul.
While the authorities told the senior to wait where he was, he knew he needed to act quickly or face the wrath of the Taliban who were conducting door-to-door searches in search of their enemies.
And so, Comer disguised himself before making a daring escape that saw him pass through multiple checkpoints in the city.
“I contacted the Foreign Office online and gave them my grid coordinates last Sunday. The advice was ‘stand fast, we’ll come and get you.’ But we were getting reports all the time from intelligence analysts used by our employer, that the Taliban were getting nearer,” the veteran recalled.
“By Monday morning, I was being advised by local sources that I really should get to the airport, but I contacted the Foreign Office again, and they again said that I shouldn’t move. If I’d listened to that advice, I seriously doubt whether I’d be alive talking to you today.”
As the former Royal Engineers officer added, he disguised himself to look like a local by donning the shalwar kameez before going for a long ride from his location to the Baron Hotel.
“Normally we wouldn’t venture out in Kabul in anything but an armored Land Cruiser, but that would have drawn far too much attention, so instead a colleague drove me in an ordinary Toyota saloon,” Comer added.
“We went through three Taliban checkpoints where they gave us the once over and waved us through, thank God. I was in the Army for 35 years and served in Iraq, and I’ve had many hairy situations, but this was right up there with them.
“The military training helps you try and think calmly and rationally, even when the s**t is hitting the fan, but I really don’t like to dwell on what would have happened if we’d been stopped. Having worked for the ANA in any capacity would definitely make me a target for the Taliban, and being a westerner, doubly so.”
After getting to the Baron Hotel, which is located near the international airport, things didn’t get any easier. With Taliban soldiers standing among the crowd, Comer had to find a way into the hotel, which was being used as an evacuation point by the British, without being noticed.
“My two colleagues just hustled me through to the entrance somehow and we made it to the safety of the hotel. I’m so grateful to them,” Comer said.
“I saw the scenes outside the hotel and the airport and I feel for those poor people so much. It’s a lovely country and I’d do anything to help them get out – the way this has been handled is appalling.”
After making it into the hotel, Comer joined two other British citizens before being escorted to the airport. He was later taken to the UAE from where he flew home via Spain to be reunited with his wife.
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