Last Team Out of Kabul

Surrounded by the Taliban

By: H. Collins

Narrated by: Ben Jacobson

Length: 8 hrs and 27 mins

Publisher's summary

The first eyewitness account of the fraught evacuation of Kabul.

As a Royal Marine Commando, H. Collins served in Afghanistan in 2001 on combat operations. He took part in the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and returned for a second tour the following year. In 2005, now a private security contractor, he spent five years in Ramadi and Fallujah, Iraq’s so-called ‘triangle of death’.

In 2014, H was back in Afghanistan, providing security for the Japanese Embassy in Kabul. In 2021, when the chaotic evacuation of the Afghan capital began, it was a tough call for the Japanese government to leave behind their significant investment in Afghanistan’s future. When H finally got the go-ahead to extract the embassy’s diplomats and staff, he was leading the only security team remaining in a city rapidly filling with Taliban fighters.

This is an eyewitness account of the final, fraught six days that H and his team spent in Kabul. Their first attempt to reach the airport ran into a firefight between Afghan government forces and the Taliban and had to be aborted to ensure the safety of their Japanese clients.

H decided on a late-night extraction under cover of darkness, following which his small team of twelve men were forced to speed through Taliban-controlled checkpoints in order to get back to their HQ compound, where the remaining ops staff and seventy-two unarmed Ghurka waited.

A live feed from a special forces drone revealed that they had been tailed back from the airport and Taliban fighters were now surrounding the compound. Special forces had also let them know that three of the Taliban who had demanded a meeting in the compound had been wearing suicide vests.

Surrounded by the Taliban, for six days, H and his men manned their defensive positions day and night. H knew that no help would come and the Taliban’s intentions were far from clear. If they could not make it through the increasingly chaotic city to the now completely surrounded airport, they would inevitably be overrun, and could expect the same fate as so many before them. Or they could try to punch their way out of the encircled capital and head to the border, or a Northern Alliance stronghold.

H’s ability to keep his team calm and focused would be key to their survival. If they made it, they would be the last team out of Kabul.

©2022 H. Collins (P)2022 Boldwood Books

Great Account of Professional British Soldier

Collins writes an account from his early days in the British Special Services the training the worldwide missions , the teams . Also about his somewhat dilettante love live until meeting THE woman.

The adventures are riding along with some of the most professional soldiers on the planet . And of course the off duty happenings that preserve the Regiment's reputation and more . Lots of action in dangerous places and training that just hearing about it makes you ache .

The accounts from combat are gritty and real. In the end Collins has left his wife and child to return to Afghanistan during the chaos of August 2021. As he notes , they, a civilian team made up of all former Special Forces the very last team in Afghanistan, working for the Japanese Embassy. While the final encounters are not huge firefights they are much more challenging accounts of talking the Taliban to allow they and their Japanese subjects to exit the Embassy and get to the airport. It's the chaos and confusion of dealing with Taliban, intoxicated with their success well beyond their expectations and wanting to miss no opportunities to punish, humiliate or exterminate the infidels.

Highly recommended along with several other books. It is always great to read accounts of major events written from the view of different participants.

Also highly recommended Schiller, Crisis in Command / Operation Pineapple Express/ Promises Betrayed/