“I will never forget [U.K. soldiers’] courage, their bravery and the sacrifice that they made for their country,” Starmer said on X.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said: “Donald Trump is wrong. For 20 years our armed forces fought bravely alongside America’s in Afghanistan.”
Prince Harry, who served two tours in Afghanistan as a British Army captain in 2008 and 2012, said NATO allies “answered that call” when Washington invoked Article 5 of the NATO treaty after the 9/11 attacks in 2001.
“I served there. I made lifelong friends there. And I lost friends there,” Prince Harry said in a statement. He noted that the U.K. alone lost 457 service personnel, adding that “thousands of lives were changed forever.”
“Mothers and fathers buried sons and daughters. Children were left without a parent. Families are left carrying the cost,” he said, urging that those sacrifices be spoken about “truthfully and with respect.”
U.K. Defense Minister John Healey said British troops who died in Afghanistan were “heroes who gave their lives in service of our nation.”
French Armed Forces Minister Catherine Vautrin said France had been engaged in Afghanistan from 2001 alongside its NATO allies, recalling the 90 French soldiers killed in operations and many others wounded. “We remember their sacrifice, which commands respect,” she wrote.