Father-in-law of soldier killed in Afghanistan on Taliban advances

The withdrawal of UK and US forces from Afghanistan has resulted in the Taliban sweeping across the region in the past two weeks.

Taliban fighters have gained increasingly more control of Afghanistan in recent weeks following President Joe Biden’s withdrawal of US forces.

In just one week they managed to seize at least 12 provincial capitals including Lashkar Gah where many Colchester paratroopers were based during the early 2000s.

The Taliban have also seized Afghanistan’s second largest city Kandahar.

Mike Jackson’s son-in-law, Colour Sergeant Kevin Fortuna, was killed by an improvised explosive device in May 2011 while serving in Afghanistan.

But Mr Jackson is now worried the sacrifices made by British servicemen over the past 20 years will be forgotten with Allied gains being wiped out by the Taliban resurgence.

He said: “It’s a difficult subject and perhaps the general public don’t know the full story.

“The fact is that, within a very short period of time, the situation is returning to how it was before the troops went out there.

“It leaves you wondering whether it was all worthwhile.”

More than 450 British troops have died in Afghanistan since the operations began in 2001 and hundreds more seriously wounded.

They include paratrooper Lance Bombardier Ben Parkinson who was expected to die from his injuries after being blown up by a Taliban anti-tank mine in Helmand province in 2006.

He suffered brain damage, internal blast wounds and the loss of both his legs.

Sapper Ashley Hall, from Colchester, also lost both legs after being injured by an IED while serving in Afghanistan with the Royal Engineers in 2010.

Ten Colchester-based soldiers were killed in Afghanistan during a six month tour of Afghanistan in 2008 alone.

However, Mr Jackson added the Taliban resurgence could have been inevitable.

He said: “Had we stayed longer, would we have just delayed the inevitable by a decade?

“We spent long enough out there to correct the situation but it seems like it’s going to be of little benefit.

“In another five or ten years, it might seem that we never went out there in the first place – was it worth the sacrifice at all?”

For the years since his son-in-law’s death, Mr Jackson has spent much of his time raising money for charity, including when he scaled the equivalent height of Mount Everest from his own flight of stairs.

He and his wife have now raised £235,000 over the past decade for the military charity Help for Heroes.

He said: “The war in Afghanistan has affected our family quite deeply, but there’s nothing we can do about that now so we just want to focus on the future and on positive things.”

The majority of Britain’s troops left Afghanistan in October 2014.

Around 750 stayed to train Afghan forces as part of a NATO mission but most of those who remained have now left the country.