The Chairman of the Scottish Afghan Society, a registered charity helping Afghan evacuees to settle into their new homes, is a Taliban loyalist who previously called for the deaths of American soldiers, according to reports.
Speaking to Sky News on the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan, Waheed Totakhyl declared: “For a long time, Afghan people have been waiting for this day. This is the day of independent Afghanistan, it’s freedom for everyone. Afghanistan is a nice and good place. Afghanistan is safer than Europe now.”
Totakhyl, who was pictured with Nicola Sturgeon, the First Minister of Scotland and leader of the left-separatist Scottish National Party (SNP), as recently as 2018, is reported by the broadcaster as having boasted that his brother is a Taliban commander in Kabul, and to have “publicly called for the death of American soldiers in Afghanistan during a protest at the U.S. consulate in Edinburgh” in 2010.
On the question of why so many people were crowding into Kabul airport and trying to cling to the outside of cargo planes to escape the city if the situation in Afghanistan is so safe and positive, he suggested some locals had been taken in by Western media suggesting the airlift offered a quick route to an easier life: “Hundreds — 200 or 500 people — they listened to the American and Canada news, they said ‘we take 30,000 Afghans to Canada’ and they said ‘Oh’ and they went to the airport,” he suggested.
Sky News spoke to some evacuees unhappy with the fact that a declared Taliban loyalist was a point of contact for people ostensibly fleeing the Taliban.
“I’m not happy with this and I’m very disappointed,” said one new arrival, a former interpreter for the British Army named as ‘Abdul’.
“There has to be action taken, the government should investigate,” he said.
“If it’s right that [Totakhyl’s] brother is a commander of Taliban or supports Taliban, he needs to be deported,” suggesting that it made no sense for the charity boss to be “helping support the refugees and… helping support Taliban.”
‘Abdul’ said that the Taliban had already killed his brother and cousin, and that his remaining family in Afghanistan were now “hiding in caves”.
Totakhyl, however, insisted that “Afghans died, 170,000 in the 20 years that America, NATO and Britain occupied Afghanistan… The Taliban started defending Afghanistan and what they’re showing now is they were right.”
“We request the Afghans to stand with the new government to make a new Afghanistan, (peaceful) Afghanistan,” he added.
Follow Jack Montgomery on Twitter: @JackBMontgomery
Follow Breitbart London on Facebook: Breitbart London
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.