Afghanistan: Soldier 'would have been horrified' at Taliban return

The father of a British soldier who was shot dead in Afghanistan in 2011 has said his son would be horrified to see the Taliban re-take the country.

Tony Lewis said 22-year-old Pte Conrad Lewis, who served with The Parachute Regiment, felt that he was "making a difference out there".

And he said he was angry at what he saw as "a wilful abandonment of the people of Afghanistan."

He asked for Afghans who had helped UK forces to be brought back to Britain.

Pte Lewis, from Warwickshire, was shot along with a colleague while patrolling an area in the Nad-e Ali district of Helmand province.

His father said: "I know that he and his colleagues really felt that they were making a difference out there.

"They really enjoyed seeing kids going back to school, to seeing markets reopening, and seeing people driving real commerce.

"They'd be horrified to see what had happened now."

Mr Lewis has been to visit Afghanistan since his son's death and said he saw a school that was teaching 3,000 girls.

Mr Lewis said: "I'm never going to say it was in vain. I can't and will not think like that, because for the last 20 years we've created great change in Afghanistan."

But he called the current situation an "utter catastrophe."

And he added: "Clearly the planning was ineffective, but now we really need our government to offer safe haven to all those people who have given support to UK forces."

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