The former Navy SEAL who killed Osama bin Laden, Rob O’Neill, claimed Thursday that the Taliban are hunting down the Afghans who worked for the United States and torturing their families “before they cut their heads off.”
WATCH:
“They’re going house to house,” O’Neill told “Fox News Primetime.” “And if they find you worked for the Americans as a translator or even a driver or a secretary, you’re lucky if they just kill you. What they’re generally doing right now, even though we are not seeing it because we are only seeing what they let us see, is they’re torturing families in front of them before they cut their heads off,” the veteran claimed.
“It’s a horrible thing. Barbaric stuff going on,” O’Neill said, noting that U.S. Special Forces are highly motivated to go into Afghanistan to rescue American citizens and Afghan allies but are being “hamstrung …. by rules of engagement.” (RELATED: ‘The Mona Lisa Of Incompetence’: Sen. Kennedy Flames Biden For Leaving Billions Of Dollars Of Equipment ‘To The Enemy’)
He argued the Biden administration is only focused on planning a “ticker tape parade” to recognize the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. O’Neill noted that U.S. forces have fought the Taliban and ISIS and “never lost to them face to face.”
The former Navy SEAL also argued that the long-term effect of the Afghanistan withdrawal will be a loss of trust by American allies — especially in Afghanistan.
“It’s going to be hard when we need to go back in there to get any translators or human intelligence on the ground simply because no one trusts us anymore. If I was an Afghan I certainly wouldn’t work for the United States right now. Especially they have 7,000 devices that they can see who we took retina scans of and fingerprints,” he claimed.
O’Neill said veterans of the war should never regret their service. “What you did was not in vain. At the end of the day, you fought for your brothers and sisters and did a great job.”
Amid the chaos in Afghanistan, private citizens have volunteered to help Americans escape from the country. (RELATED: ‘I Cannot Believe The Generals Who Won’t Resign’: Former SEAL Who Killed Bin Laden Slams Military Leadership Over Afghanistan)
Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy on Thursday asked White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki how the Biden administration could call the Taliban “businesslike and professional.”
Members of the Taliban Badri 313 military unit take a position at the airport in Kabul on Aug. 31. (Wakil Kohsar/AFP via Getty Images)
Doocy noted during the daily media briefing that the new Taliban government includes an interior minister with his own FBI Wanted poster and a $10 million bounty for his arrest. The Fox News correspondent asked what part of that description could be labeled as “businesslike” or “professional.”
The Senate Armed Services Committee has invited Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley to appear before open hearings and face questions about the Afghanistan withdrawal.