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'They are looking for us to kill us': In hiding from Taliban, Afghans who helped U.S. struggle to escape


WASHINGTON – He has been hiding from the Taliban ever since Kabul fell in August, nearly starving to death at one point during Afghanistan's bitterly cold winter.

In the weeks after the U.S. ended 20 years of military occupation in Afghanistan, the former Afghan Armed Forces commander lost several fellow soldiers who put up one last fight against the Taliban takeover. His brother, shot in the kidney, almost died earlier in combat.

Now, the former commander is fighting to keep himself and his family alive amid a deadly retribution campaign by Taliban fighters.

"Right now, they are looking for us to kill us and to kill others who are like us," the Afghan veteran told Paste BN during a phone interview facilitated by an interpreter. He asked that his name be withheld to protect his identity.

"It's a very tough situation for us. We're just trying to survive, and we don't have a gun to fight," he said. 

More: Staying could mean death. The escape nearly killed her. How one woman fled Afghanistan for freedom.

The day after the Taliban seized control, the new regime stormed his parents' house looking for information on his whereabouts. He's secured lodging, but nowhere is truly safe. If the Taliban come bursting through his door, he says his only escape will be to jump out his window. 

He is one of tens of thousands of U.S.-allied Afghans in hiding, according to veterans groups, as the Taliban seek retribution against those who led the country during U.S. occupation. 

A report from the United Nations released last week found more than 100 members of the former Afghan government, its security forces and others who worked with the U.S. have been killed since the Taliban's Aug. 15 takeover. Two-thirds were killed at the hands of the Taliban, despite the militant Islamic group's promise of "amnesty" for Afghans who allied themselves with the U.S. during the war.

The U.N. report cited credible evidence that other Afghan allies have disappeared, their fates unknown.  

More: Exclusive: 82 lawmakers call on White House to evacuate more Afghans who helped US

The U.N.'s findings just confirmed what many American veterans already knew: Their former friends and fighting partners remain in grave danger, particularly as Afghanistan spirals deeper into a horrific humanitarian crisis. 

The economy has essentially collapsed amid widespread famine, a freezing winter and the return of the Taliban's brutal rule.

Starvation now threatens to kill more Afghans than 20 years of war did, David Miliband, president and CEO of the International Rescue Committee, told lawmakers on Capitol Hill during a hearing Wednesday.

A failure to act, he said, will lead to a "catastrophe-of-choice imposed on the Afghan people and a catastrophe-of-reputation" for the U.S. and its allies.

'We can't go out from our home'

The White House insists the evacuation of Afghan allies – including interpreters, former Afghan government workers, soldiers and others  – remains a priority. But a coalition of veterans and humanitarian groups working to aid Afghan allies, as well as a growing number of members of Congress, are demanding a stronger effort by the White House to expedite evacuations as the situation worsens. 

"We can't go out from our home. We're scared of the Taliban," said a 23-year old woman whose mother, a judge in the former Afghan government, is now in hiding with 11 of her family members. The woman, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity, recently completed medical school, but she isn't working out of fear for her safety and after new Taliban restrictions placed on women doctors.

More: 'Girls are going to be forgotten,' as Taliban replace ministry for women with one restricting them

She and her family, with legal assistance from the International Association of Women Judges, are trying desperately to leave the country. 

"Before this, I had a job and I could go out from my home and take the salary from the government," said the judge, whose identity Paste BN is also not disclosing. "I had money to support my family. But now I don't have anything."

The ex-Afghan commander said he has contemplated leaving for Iran or Pakistan, like many other Afghans have done, but fleeing across the border also involves risks. So he is stuck in his war-torn homeland, unable to break through the bureaucratic maze of the U.S. visa and refugee systems nearly six months after President Joe Biden's chaotic U.S. withdrawal.

"You can breathe, but you're like a dead person," he said. "Anytime that the door gets a knock, we just assume that the Taliban is at the door."

He said he just wants his family out of Afghanistan. 

"I don't want them to die in front of my eyes. I ask the United States government to help me and thousands of other families that are left behind in Afghanistan in the middle of a war zone."

More: Afghan refugees needed help. Americans stepped up to say, 'Welcome to your new home.'

Thousands of Afghan allies have applied for a special immigrant visa with the U.S. State Department, overloading a system already notorious for being backlogged and slow. Yet many of the Afghans in danger don't meet the visa requirements. They must have been employed for at least one year with the U.S. government or the International Security Assistance Force as an interpreter or in other positions for the U.S. military.

That's left other Afghan allies – including members of the Afghan National Army Special Operations Command, judges, subcontractors and human rights advocates – seeking refugee status through the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program. But to be approved, they need a referral from the U.S. agency or individuals who supported their work, a hurdle that many Afghans have not been able to clear. 

"Our concern is that these people who've served alongside of us for 20 years are just going to be left by the wayside," said Daniel Elkins, a former Green Beret who served in Afghanistan and founder of the Special Operations Association of America, an advocacy group for the U.S. special operations community.

US veterans band together for Afghans: 'They're counting on us'

U.S. veterans of America's longest war have banded together to help Afghan allies evacuate, providing food, water and wood, helping them secure safe housing and delivering other aid. Sixteen veterans and other humanitarian groups make up the Moral Compass Federation, which which is working to protect and evacuate Afghan partners.

"What people in Afghanistan need more than anything right now is for us as a collective group to maintain that focus and not lose speed despite the fact that maybe it's died out of the media cycle," Elkins said. "They're counting on us." 

Biden hailed the frantic evacuation efforts out of Afghanistan prior to the U.S.'s exit as one of the largest airlifts in U.S. history, resulting in the relocation of around 124,000 individuals. But the chaotic withdrawal produced one of the biggest political setbacks of his presidency, undercutting his pledge to restore competency in the White House and helping to sink approval ratings that haven't recovered.

More than 75,000 Afghan evacuees have been brought to the U.S. as part of the Biden administration's Operation Allies Welcome program, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

"We will continue our efforts to facilitate the safe and orderly travel of U.S. citizens, (legal permanent residents), and Afghan allies and their eligible family members who wish to leave Afghanistan," a State Department spokeswoman said in a statement to Paste BN. "We will not be sharing details of these efforts due to safety and operational considerations."

More: For Biden, fallout from the Afghanistan withdrawal abroad complicates agenda at home

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the White House is "still committed" to the evacuation of Afghan partners. As a positive sign, she noted that charter flights out of Afghanistan resumed in January, after halting in the fall. She said it was also a topic of discussion during last month's meeting between Biden and Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani, the emir of Qatar, where an estimated 60,000 Afghans have relocated before resettlement.

"We are not naïve about the challenges, nor are we naïve about the conditions on the ground, which is why we are so focused on getting humanitarian assistance to the people in Afghanistan through trusted and reliable sources," Psaki said. 

A 'moral injury' after America's longest war

Elkins estimated that around 3,000 to 5,000 highly trained elite Afghan forces – as well as their families – remain in the country and at grave risk. The Moral Compass Federation is tracking around 30,000 former Afghan special operations members who remain in all. The number balloons to 90,000 when including Afghans who worked for women's rights, civil society and other humanitarian causes.

Scott Mann, senior adviser of Task Force Pineapple, another veterans group helping Afghan allies, said their top priority has been to keep at-risk Afghan safe until an opportunity to leave presents itself. But groups like his are quickly burning through their personal funds, leaving a toll on the veterans themselves. The lasting trauma of leaving their Afghan comrades behind has produced what's known in the military community as a "moral injury."

Mann, who completed three tours in Afghanistan as part of a Special Forces officer, questioned the "political will" of the Biden administration to ensure the evacuation of the Afghans and said officials are "just hoping this will go away."

"Five years following Vietnam, there were horrific atrocities when nobody was looking. Nobody cared," Mann said. "And that's our biggest fear now. If we don't get the international community engaged here, particularly in light of this administration doing really nothing, this is going to get worse.

"If they're not going to do something, we need Congress to."

More: A timeline of the US withdrawal and Taliban recapture of Afghanistan

In a letter to Biden last week, 82 Eighty-two members of Congress, both Democrats and Republicans  in a letter to Biden last week, called on the administration to "do more to evacuate those remaining as quickly and safely as possible" and resettle them in the U.S. 

The lawmakers recommended the administration accelerate and expand the processing of visa applicants at so-called "lily pads" – U.S. military bases abroad where Afghans are brought after evacuation – and work closely with nongovernmental organizations to streamline the process. 

A bipartisan group of senators led by Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., are pushing for a broaderlegislation to introduced introduced the Honor Our Commitment Act. It would require  strategy to support Afghans applying for special immigrant visas or refugee status, but their legislation has not advanced. maybe we can cut this?

Sarah Verardo, a co-founder of Save Our Allies, which has also worked to assist Afghan allies, said her group is hearing from "hundreds of people every single day, begging for help, begging to be evacuated." She said the U.S. government seems to be operating in "receiving mode" for information but is not being proactive. 

"What is the plan to get our allies out?" asked Verardo, whose husband, Michael Verardo, a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne Division, received two Purple Hearts after being wounded twice in Afghanistan. The injuries took his left leg, much of his left arm and have resulted in 120 surgeries post-Afghanistan.

"It made me realize that I had to do whatever I could to finish a fight that I knew was deeply important to him," Verardo said, "and that would be honoring the moral commitment to our wartime allies."

Matthew Brown contributed to this report. Reach Joey Garrison on Twitter @joeygarrison.