I fled the hell of Afghanistan… only to find the enemy in Britain: A brave interpreter who risked death on SAS missions reveals how he discovered Islamist extremists in the UK spouting the very hatred he thought he’d left behind
At a meeting in a run-down cafe in London, Michael, now calling himself Mohammed, is in full flow.
An Irishman with a shining moon-face fringed by an orange beard, he exudes all the joy and intensity of the religious convert as he romanticises an ideology he barely comprehends.
Discovering that I am not only an Afghan but one just arrived from Afghanistan, he is delighted at the chance to commune with, as he sees it, another of the world’s most oppressed peoples.
He warms to his theme, exhorting me to return home to fight for the Taliban and liberate my country from the infidel. I’m used to this. I recently had a blazing row with some of my own extended family who whined on about how things were better under the Taliban, and how a woman’s honour was safer.
