A gay man trapped in Kabul has said the Taliban 'are hunting us' as he gave a harrowing description of what a life under the extremists' rule would look like for the LGBTQ+ community.
The man, whose identity has been concealed for his own safety, said the Taliban would take pleasure in hunting down and killing LGBTQ+ people in an exclusive interview.
'They kill us very brutally. Not like the others who they kill with a gun or a bullet.
'They will use fire, or they will behead or stone us, and they will enjoy it - it's acceptable to them.'
He went on to say his best friend committed suicide because 'no one was here to listen to his voice'.
'I tried to encourage him, to give him hope, but he's not coming back and I can't forget that moment.
'He was living like a shadow, and he went like a shadow.'
The man, whose identity has been concealed for his own safety, said the Taliban would take pleasure in hunting down and killing LGBTQ+ people
The future for the LGBTQ+ community in Afghanistan became particularly bleak when the Taliban rose to power just weeks ago
Under the Taliban's extremist interpretation of Sharia Law, homosexuality is strictly prohibited and punishable by death - often in particularly brutal ways
The future for the LGBTQ+ community in Afghanistan became particularly bleak when the Taliban rose to power just weeks ago.
Afghan laws already prohibited homosexuality, as people who engaged in same-sex sexual behaviour received prison terms and were widely persecuted.
But under the Taliban's extremist interpretation of Sharia Law, homosexuality is strictly prohibited and punishable by death - often in particularly brutal ways.
In an interview with Fox News earlier this week, US Special Forces sniper Tim Kennedy, who served in both Afghanistan and Iraq, said he had personally seen Taliban fighters burning homosexuals alive and throwing them off of roofs.
Nancy Kelley, chief executive of LGBT rights charity Stonewall said: 'For years LGBTQ+ Afghans have had to endure routine discrimination, abuse and persecution, including by the state.
'With the Taliban in power we expect this situation to deteriorate further,' she told i News.
Meanwhile, allied forces are cutting short their evacuation operations in the wake of terror attacks orchestrated by an ISIS affiliate group yesterday.
The double suicide attack carried out by ISIS-K militants at the gates of Kabul airport killed at least 108 people, including 13 American service personnel, and prompted Western forces to bring a swift end to their evacuation campaigns.
Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said the UK evacuation mission in Afghanistan will end 'in a matter of hours' and the 1,000 people already inside Kabul airport will be the last to be flown out.
The effort will now focus on evacuating UK nationals and others who have already been cleared to leave and are already at the airport.
So far, Britain has evacuated more than 13,700 British nationals and Afghans, representing the second biggest airlift by the country's air force after the Berlin Airlift in 1949, the UK defence ministry said.
US President Joe Biden promised on Thursday to hunt down and destroy the ISIS-K terrorists who conducted the deadly attack, but has been criticised for giving a list of approved Afghan evacuees to the Taliban amid fears it will now be used by the extremist group to kill those named on it.
A relative mourns next to the body of a loved one who died in the airport bomb blast at a hospital in Kabul on Friday
Distraught relatives load in a car the coffin of a victim of the twin suicide bomb attack at a hospital in Kabul on Friday
A man stands guard at the site of the terrorist attack which killed at least 90 people outside Kabul airport
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