They helped British soldiers in Iraq. Now they’ve been left behind to die

Despite huge personal risk, locals in Iraq worked as translators for the British army. But after their identities were leaked to militias, they say their lives are under threat – and they have been abandoned by the UK, reports Bel Trew in Baghdad

A militia member shows a picture of Qassem Soleimani, whose death has inflamed tensions (Reuters)

It has been over half a year since he has seen his wife and child or any of his friends. Half a year since he has really left the house where he is hiding. But today, despite the grave dangers, he has decided to make an exception.

Hoodie pulled down over his face, sweeping nervous glances from side to side, Ali makes his way over to our car, checking he is not being followed.

The chosen meeting place is a busy junction in Baghdad, and we drive around avoiding checkpoints so as to look less out of place. The air crackles with tension: the interview pauses every time someone passes by.

“I miss my wife and child so much. I sent them to a different location and all I can do is occasionally speak to them on the phone,” the 38-year-old says, looking warily at a group of youths loitering just a few metres down the street.

“I am living in a secret location. I cannot go home. I cannot take the risk. I cannot work to support my family. I cannot usually walk in the street. Even this is not safe.”

Ali is neither a spy nor a criminal, but a former translator for the British military. He is one of eight interpreters who say they fear for their lives after being employed by a subcontracting company to work with British special forces at Camp Taji, about 40km north of Baghdad. From 2018 until the pandemic hit in March last year, they were translating for British advisers who ran training programmes for Iraqi special forces at the base.

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They claim their personal information, which was requested on behalf of British forces last March, was shared with the Iraqi security forces without their consent and so ended up in the hands of powerful Iranian-backed Shia militia groups in Iraq. These groups violently oppose the presence of foreign forces in the country and have repeatedly threatened Iraqis who work with them.

Calls for blood and revenge have surged since US forces assassinated powerful Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani and his Iraqi lieutenant Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis in an airstrike on Baghdad airport in January last year.

Since then, there has been a spike in attacks on coalition interests across the country, amid calls for all foreign troops to leave. There are around 1,400 UK military and civilian personnel in Iraq as part of anti-Isis operations, according to the Ministry of Defence.

Many are at Camp Taji, which has been repeatedly targeted: it was subject to multiple rocket attacks by militias at the start of 2020, when a British soldier and two Americans were killed. Deadly threats made against Iraqis who work with coalition forces have also increased.

The Washington Post reported last year that a list purporting to contain personal information about Iraqis admitted to Union III military base in Baghdad, the main headquarters of the US-led military coalition, was published by the Sabreen news agency, affiliated with Iranian-backed militias.

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The lists, which could not be independently verified, had information ranging from home addresses to the types of car the translators drove.

Then in October, the same news agency, Sabreen, published a statement by one of the militias – a relatively new group called Ashab al-Kahf, or People of the Cave – that was a veiled threat against interpreters working with British forces specifically.

The eight translators knew at that point that they had to go into hiding. One of them even received three AK-47 bullets, representing each member of his family including his child, in an envelope with a message threatening punishment and reading: “You will not have mercy from us.”

Another, called Salem, tells The Independent that a group of strange men appeared on his road in a white SUV, interrogating his neighbours about his work.

“They were watching the house. They knew my name. It was at that point I decided to leave my house, and send my wife and kid away. I haven’t seen them since then.

“I can’t walk in the streets. I’m caged,” he says with desperation.

‘Waiting to be killed’

Fearing for their lives and separated from their loved ones, the men have contacted TBW Global, the contractor that employed them on behalf of the British forces, as well as the Ministry of Defence, the Home Office, former ministers such as Tobias Ellwood, the British ambassador in Baghdad, and half a dozen members of parliament and the House of Lords.

They even contacted Sefton Council in Merseyside, as in March this year it pledged to take in 25 Afghan asylum seekers who had helped British troops during the war there.

But although their case has been raised by crossbench peer Baroness Coussins in the Lords, nothing practical has been done for them.

The Ministry of Defence told The Independent an investigation was under way into the incident. “While we do not employ interpreters in Iraq directly, we take any breach of personal security extremely seriously,” a spokesperson said. “We hold our contractors to the highest standards.”

Baroness Goldie, minister for defence, told Baroness Coussins in a written response to her inquiries that the ministry had investigated the claims and had spoken to TBW Global, which “provided security advice, which we keep under review, but consider to be appropriate at this moment”.

However, the Ministry of Defence did not respond to questions about why protocol had apparently changed, given the contractors said they had been working for two years at Camp Taji before their information was requested for a specific security permit.

The translators with soldiers at Camp Taji (Faces have been blurred to protect identities) (Anonymous)

Meanwhile, Major General Kev Copsey, the British deputy commander of coalition forces in Iraq, told The Independent that he could not comment on this specific incident as the contractors were not directly employed by the coalition forces. “No one’s information has been shared for the coalition,” he added.

This was echoed in the letter by Baroness Goldie, who said that the MoD “is not directly managing the security of these individuals”. The Independent understands that the MoD also believes there was no breach whatsoever, and that normal procedure was followed, which includes needing to pass information about civilian contractors to the Iraqi security forces to secure access to the bases.

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The Home Office also did not reply to repeated requests for comment on the possibility of the UK government offering the group any assistance. TBW Global declined to comment “due to security and contractual agreement with our client”.

And so, six months on, the translators say they are in limbo, “waiting to be killed”.

“When we started working for the British, they told us we were ‘part of the family’, but they have abandoned us. We don’t care where we go, we just want to be relocated somewhere safe,” Ali says with a slight crack in his voice.

“Even animals have rights in the UK. We would like the basic rights the animals in your country get. I don’t ask more than that.”

‘I cannot go out at all – 24 hours, seven days a week’

The Independent spoke to three of the eight translators, all of whom have spent years translating for the British and American forces in Iraq and so understand the dangers of working for foreign militaries in the country.

Seen as traitors by the myriad militias in Iraq, several translators employed to translate for the British military have in the past been kidnapped, tortured and killed, while their families have also been targeted. The coalition and the Iraqi security forces have often been powerless to protect them.

This is why, in 2007, Britain launched a special protection programme to help Iraqi civilian employees who helped the British military during the Iraq war by giving them one-off financial assistance, exceptional indefinite leave to remain in the UK with help to relocate, or the opportunity to resettle.

But unlike a similar British scheme for Afghan translators which continues today, the Iraqi scheme closed a few years ago, leaving Iraqi translators with no identifiable route to safety.

The Home Office did not reply to several requests for comment from The Independent over whether the scheme would be restarted or whether resettlement would be offered to these eight individuals given the exceptional circumstances.

The Home Office told the translators themselves in emails shared with The Independent that the relocation scheme for former interpreters in Iraq is now closed.

The government has done its own assessment into the perceived threat against translators like Ali and deemed them not to be at risk, despite the fact that the dangers posed by the Iranian proxies in Iraq are well known and documented. It seems unlikely that they will be given any help.

Just on Tuesday, Ayn al-Asad airbase in western Iraq, which hosts American and other international forces, was hit by two rockets.

Husham, another of the translators in hiding, tells The Independent that, knowing the dangers, they worked hard to keep “their work invisible”, changing their day-to-day routine, and staying as anonymous as possible. Many of their family members had no idea what their true jobs were.

They believed they had a certain level of security as they were repeatedly told their information would not go beyond the UK or coalition forces.

However they think something changed after the January 2020 killing of Soleimani and al-Muhandis, when the Iraqi parliament passed a resolution calling on the Iraqi government to end all foreign troop presence in Iraq.

Three of the translators told The Independent they were asked two months later by their supervisor for personal details, including their full names, home addresses and car licence plates, to secure new permits to allow access to the military base where they were working. They said this information had not been asked for previously during the two years they had worked at the Camp Taji base.

The translators shared WhatsApp screenshots of the conversation. In the discussion, which took place in a group chat, the manager acknowledges their concerns and fears but assures them the information will not go to the Iraqis. The translators thought it might go as far as the US embassy in Baghdad, but that was all.

“So you are aware this is only for the UK and [US company] SOSi not for another agency,” the individual writes.

“I understand some of you are worried about this information getting out to Iraqi forces and agencies.”

But when the permit arrived, it was clear it had been processed by the Iraqi security forces, because it was stamped with the Iraqi National Operations Centre logo. It contained all of their names and details and, according to the translators, was distributed to all the checkpoints that are often co-manned by the militias, revealing their identity.

‘They promised us we were part of the family’

Salem, who has been working for US and British military forces for more than 15 years, says he was blindsided by the document. He had already applied for asylum in the US in 2015 because of previous threats, but his case is still pending.

“I was terrified; my first thought was about my wife and my three daughters. Not me being killed but what will happen to them,” he tells The Independent via an encrypted messaging app from the house where he is hiding.

“My wife is Sunni, she is an easy target,” he adds. As a diabetic, he says he desperately needs to go to the doctor but cannot because it would be too dangerous.

“I cannot go out at all – 24 hours, seven days a week – 30 days a month inside,” he adds.

He says he repeatedly expressed concern about handing over information for security permits and was very reluctant fearing it might be leaked.

“Afterwards we asked why did you pass the information. No one responded.

“After they circulated our information [the militias] can recognise every single one of us. They’ll know our faces, our names, our details, our homes and so about our families.”

The final straw was the Ashab al-Kahf statement in October, demanding that Iraqi translators working with coalition forces become informers in exchange for large sums of money and their safety.

The translators interpreted this as a warning that if they didn’t collaborate they would be considered enemies and killed.

Since then the same news network has leaked documents purporting to show government databases containing details of Iraqi citizens.

The contracting company acknowledged the dangers they were facing, a third translator called Mustafa says. He is also in hiding, and has not seen his 11-year-old son or wife since October.

“When we pushed for an investigation, my line manager eventually sent me an email saying change your address, your movement habits, your phone number, and suggested I move to Kurdistan or apply for the United Nations refugee programme,” he tells The Independent.

“I explained I can’t move to Kurdistan as I don’t speak the [Kurdish] language and I can’t get residency unless I buy property.

“If I wait for the UNHRC for six years to process my request, I’ll be dead.”

There is an additional level of confusion, as TBW Global outsourced some of its administrative work to Iraq-based subcontractor Al Intiqa, who would likely have coordinated the permits with the Iraqi security services.

But Baroness Goldie assured Baroness Coussins that Al Intiqa “has a proven track record of working with the coalition, NATO, and other international companies in Iraq”. Goldie added that TBW has assured the MoD that “the use of a local company was a necessary compliance requirement”.

And so for now, the only thing the translators can do is keep begging for help. They regularly message the MoD, the Home Office, and MPs when they can, but still feel like they have been abandoned.

“They promised us we were part of the family,” repeats Ali as he gears himself up to walk back to his hideout. He checks the road three times before leaving and then adds one more plea:

“We are not alone here, we have families and children. Please don’t leave us all behind.”

Names of translators have been changed to protect their identities