Afghan general: People related to the Taliban were flown to Norway during the evacuation

People with ties to the Taliban were flown to Norway, while many who should have been evacuated here remained in Kabul, an Afghan general said on Tuesday. The Norwegian Armed Forces deny having evacuated people with ties to the Taliban.

General Ghulam Daud Tarakhil was the first commander of the CRU, the Afghan terrorist force Norwegian soldiers trained and lived close to from 2014.

According to the newspaper Aftenposten, he sent a letter to the Norwegian Ministry of Defense in which he criticized the process that took place when Western forces still controlled the airport in Kabul.

In the letter, Daud Tarakhil names a man who played a key role in developing the lists of people to be evacuated. He claims that many of those who were evacuated were friends or relatives of the person in question and that several people who were evacuated as CRU personnel were not, in fact, CRU affiliated. 

According to the general and other sources Aftenposten has spoken to, people who had a remarkably short affiliation with CRU were on the planes to Norway, including – allegedly – people who have been blacklisted by the CRU.

The blacklist

The blacklist includes people who had either been arrested before or had links to people the Afghan authorities believed supported the Taliban.

The Armed Forces rejected the claim that people with ties to the Taliban have come to Norway.

“It is not true that Norway has evacuated anyone connected to the Taliban. We had good procedures to identify the right people at the airport in Kabul. The Armed Forces collaborated with key personnel in the CRU to identify personnel who were evacuated.

“We have not evacuated people who should not have been evacuated,” Brigadier Eystein Kvarving, spokesman for Chief of Defense Eirik Kristoffersen, told Aftenposten.

Source: © NTB Scanpix / #Norway Today / #NorwayTodayNews

Do you have a news tip for Norway Today? We want to hear it. Get in touch at [email protected]