Afghan interpreters airlifted to Britain are having to be guarded because of “Taliban sympathisers” among the evacuees, reports have revealed.
“It is only right that those who stood side by side with us in conflict and their families can now rebuild their lives in the UK without fear of reprisals,” said a spokesman for the Home Office — the government department with broad responsibility for borders, policing, and national security — in comments quoted by The Telegraph, which revealed that security measures are already being put in place at the quarantine hotels hosting evacuees.
“We’ve got to make sure that they are safe, as amongst those that arrived in the UK, there are actually Taliban sympathisers,” commented Shabnam Nasimi, director of the Conservative Friends of Afghanistan spokesman for the Afghanistan and Central Asian Association, on the situation.
“We’ve heard that there were people being evacuated who were saying on the plane: ‘Don’t say anything bad about the Taliban’,” he warned.
“We have a duty to protect [the interpreters]. They protected us and our mission in Afghanistan, they stood alongside us — and now it is our duty in the UK to stand alongside them and make sure they don’t get in harm’s way.”
“Sadly [finding Afghan interpreters] in the UK is a lot easier because of these lists that were handed over to the Taliban at Kabul airport,” said British special forces veteran Rob Campbell, who served in Afghanistan.
“We gave them lists of names and ages, and in some cases I believe biometric detail,” he continued.
“An interpreter coming to the UK and then being targeted and killed would send a much stronger message back to the Afghan community back home of: no matter where you go, you’re available, you’re still a target,” he warned.
It has already been revealed that one man helping to resettle evacuees, Scottish Afghan Society chairman Waheed Totakhyl, is the brother of a Taliban commander, and he makes no secret of his own Taliban sympathies.
“NATO and Britain occupied Afghanistan… The Taliban started defending Afghanistan and what they’re showing now is they were right,” he told Sky News, which alleges he was at a protest at a U.S. consulate calling for the death of American soldiers in 2010.
Among the evacuees themselves, at least one is admitted to have been on the “no-fly” list and another, a former Afghan Special Forces commando, has been detained following a dawn raid on his hotel.
Other European countries including Sweden and Germany have revealed that some of their evacuees are security risks or people they had previously deported for criminality, but Boris Johnson’s government is extremely reluctant to be transparent about similar issues arising from the British airlift.
Breitbart London is seeking greater disclosure through the Freedom of Information Act, but the Home Office was yet to respond as of the time of publication.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.