Life on the run from Taliban ‘nightmarish’ for allies left behind in Afghanistan

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Mohammad Firoz is living in Kabul, but he says it’s not much of a life anymore.

He has effectively been on the run for two years, since the fall of the Afghan government and the U.S. military withdrawal stranded him in a sea of enemies. As a Western-oriented English speaker who spent 14 years assisting nongovernmental organizations and journalists during the U.S.-led war, he is a target for Taliban retaliation.

Two of his sons don’t go to school, and the one who does always has had to be escorted by another family member since one son was stopped on his way to school by people probing Mr. Firoz’s whereabouts.

He said he might be able to find work, but Taliban intelligence teams have “hunted” other people who have worked for Western-allied NGOs. A standing monetary award is offered for information that leads the Taliban to people like him, he said.

While relatives and friends resettle in the U.S., Mr. Firoz said, he waits and worries along with tens of thousands of others.

“I lost my job, I lost my income and cannot support and feed my family as I did before. My family and my children worry and fear about me because hundreds of people like me have been arrested or killed in the last two years,” he said.

Such is life for one of the thousands of allies who bolstered the U.S. war effort but were left behind when President Biden ordered a final troop pullout two years ago.

“I can frankly say that everyone who is living in Afghanistan, especially those who worked with the international community, are living in a dreadfully nightmarish situation,” said Mr. Firoz. The Washington Times granted the use of a pseudonym for him to speak without endangering his life.

Brix Gustavson, a former Navy SEAL, spent 19 months in Afghanistan and traveled to 20 provinces working for U.S. organizations. Mr. Firoz was his translator for five of those months in the northern part of the country working for the U.S. Agency for International Development.

He said Mr. Firoz and others like him signed up believing American promises of salvation for their home country and rescue for themselves. That was particularly strong for Mr. Firoz, who grew up with a Westernized outlook in Kabul and then saw the U.S. arrive to liberate his city.

“To have these superheroes come in, wearing the name and playing the game. This is the United States Army coming in there. What young man wouldn’t be lured by that?” he said. “And when the word went out, you can make money, you can improve your English and, hey, if you work hard and prove yourself to these people, they’ll even take you back to the United States when you’re done. It was really a dream come true for many young Afghan men and women.”

To understand the U.S. promise, you must understand what it was like in Afghanistan at that point. Those on the ground had to choose: Did they support the U.S., or did they ally with the Taliban?

People like Mr. Firoz backed the U.S. and, Mr. Gustavson said, they “overextended themselves toward our cause” because they had the Americans’ promise of rescue waiting.

When the time came to redeem the promise, the U.S. closed the cashier’s window.

Mr. Gustavson recalled the images of Afghans clinging to the side of a C-17 transport plane, trying to hold their grip as it lifted off and rose thousands of feet into the air.

“Their fear, their desire to get away from evil and their belief in the United States is so strong that that enabled them to hold on to the side of a plane and take off,” he said.

The Biden administration celebrates those who made the airlift out of Afghanistan.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said the U.S. has welcomed some 115,000 Afghans since the summer of 2021 and has offered unprecedented support.

“America keeps its promises, and no promise is more sacrosanct than the one we make to support and protect those who serve alongside our troops,” Mr. Mayorkas said in a statement last month marking two years since the airlift. “I am immensely proud of the intragovernmental workforce, veterans’ networks, and American people who have stood by and supported our Afghan allies in their moment of need. We are ready and eager to work with Congress to finish the mission.”

He said the administration did its job by bringing the Afghans to the U.S., and he said it’s up to Capitol Hill to give them a pathway to permanent status.

Yet true Afghan allies — those who worked with the U.S. — already have a path to permanent status and eventually citizenship through the Special Immigrant Visa, a program designed specifically for those who aided the war effort.

The problem is that the Biden administration also airlifted out tens of thousands of Afghans who provided no such aid. They were just the ones who made it through Taliban checkpoints in Kabul to reach the airport.

Mr. Firoz, 38, said he woke up one morning to see a picture that his cousin had posted on social media from inside a U.S. plane en route to Qatar.

“What did really happen in here? People like me who worked for years with U.S. and Western foreigners they left behind, and people who did not work even for one day, they have been all evacuated — thousands of them,” he told The Times.

Mr. Firoz said he doesn’t keep in touch with other allies left behind because it isn’t safe.

State Department data as of March 31 shows roughly 73,000 special visa applications at the start of the process and 69,000 others from Afghans who had completed their documents and were awaiting the State Department’s initial decision.

Nearly 10,000 others received initial approval and were awaiting interviews with the State Department. Those cases were associated with another 47,000 family members — spouses and children.

Not all of the applicants will qualify.

The approval rate was roughly 30% late last year and early this year.

Mr. Firoz said he first applied for the visa in 2014 but the State Department said it couldn’t verify his work on behalf of the U.S. He reapplied, got a case number in August 2022 and submitted his documents a month later.

He said he has received replies telling him that the State Department has the documents it needs and he is among the tens of thousands awaiting initial approval.

The State Department said that step averages about 140 days, though Mr. Firoz has been waiting more than twice that long.

If Mr. Firoz is approved, he must go through a Homeland Security Department check and an in-person interview with the State Department. That presents a huge hurdle because the U.S. doesn’t have a diplomatic presence in Afghanistan. To get to an American embassy, Mr. Firoz would probably have to find a way out of the country, likely to Pakistan.

Mr. Firoz told The Times that he would do it all again, even with his harrowing experiences over the past two years.

“Yes, definitely,” he said.

If he does reach the U.S., Mr. Firoz said, he would like to live in California.