WESTERN leaders must engage with the Taliban to prevent Afghanistan becoming a failed state hosting terrorist groups, a former head of the British armed forces claimed today.

General Sir Nick Carter, who was chief of the defence staff until last November, described “a failure of political will” as responsible for the US defeat in Afghanistan last year, which led to a chaotic withdrawal of its own and allied, including British, troops.

Speaking a year after the botched evacuation, he also said it “appears” that Britain let down Afghan contractors.

He said: “I think that, collectively as an international community with the regional neighbours playing in this, we have to engage because we have to recognise the humanitarian crisis that is under way there.

“If we don’t engage them, we will end up shutting them off as a pariah state.”

Afghanistan is experiencing one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, according to Human Rights Watch. The United Nations says 95 per cent of Afghans are going hungry. 

The United States is holding about $7 billion (£5.8bn) in Afghan central bank funds, which it has refused to return. 

Activist and writer Tariq Ali, speaking at a Stop the War Coalition meeting on Monday night, condemned US President Joe Biden’s suggestion that half the money could be given to victims of the September 11 attacks as “loathsome.”

He also condemned the western occupation of Afghanistan for a lack of humanitarian investment in areas like housing and crops while giving money to corrupt Afghan officials.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has suggested that the purpose of the US-led war in Afghanistan was never to win victory but to have an endless war through which arms companies and the national security elite could “wash” money out of reach of the tax authorities in the US and other countries.