KEY POINTS

  • A group of Taliban fighters is reportedly searching for "traitors" to exact revenge
  • The fighters carried AK-47s during the raid
  • The jihadis previously promised that Afghan interpreters would be "pardoned"

Taliban fighters are reportedly going door-to-door and killing “traitors” who helped British and U.S. forces, just hours after the last Western troops left the country.

Former foreign allies and workers have been in hiding since the last U.S. military troops exited Afghanistan as the Taliban started raiding homes, looking for "traitors" who aided the U.S. and British military. The terrorist group is said to be looking for revenge.

Kaleem, a 35-year-old veteran of five years who formerly worked as a translator for the British forces, said a group of armed jihadis — led by an imam now working as a Taliban commander — knocked on his family’s home during a raid.

“He knocked on the door. He was with bodyguards carrying AK-47s asking where I was but my family said I was not in. They were very scared. They thought they would be taken away,” Kaleem told the Daily Mail.

“We thought they would search the house, but they didn’t and warned they would return. We are all terrified they will find me or punish the family if they don’t. I will die if they find me.”

Thousands of Afghans who worked as former interpreters for the U.S. and U.K. forces said they feared that the Taliban may have seized their biometric details and records. During the takeover on Aug. 15, some jihadis went to the National Directorate of Security and the Ministry of Communications where they secured information on Afghan intelligence officers and their informers, according to The New York Times.

The reported raid comes after Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid promised that the new government would “pardon” people who “fought against us.”

"We have pardoned all those who have fought against us. Animosities have come to an end," he said during the Aug. 17 press conference. "We do not want to have any problems with the international community."

The raid also comes as more reports about the Taliban’s brutal rule emerge. On Tuesday, a former Afghan special forces soldier claimed the insurgent group has already killed at least 15 of his colleagues, 12 of whom were members of the Kandahar special forces and three of whom were soldiers in Jalalabad.

“They were my close friends. I was in touch with them. The Taliban took them out of their homes and shot them," the former soldier told BBC.

Taliban fighters also allegedly beat and raped a gay man who they met in Kabul after talking with him for three weeks online. According to the victim, the insurgent group pretended to be a friend who could help the man leave Afghanistan, the Independent reported.

Taliban fighters stand on an armoured vehicle parading in Kandahar on September 1, 2021 to celebrate after the US pulled all its troops out of Afghanistan
Taliban fighters stand on an armoured vehicle parading in Kandahar on September 1, 2021 to celebrate after the US pulled all its troops out of Afghanistan AFP / JAVED TANVEER