Watching Kabul from Kansas City: Afghan family, Army veteran share fear for family, friends
Azizullah stayed awake through the night, fixated on the news as the Taliban closed in on the Afghanistan capital city of Kabul. It was 5 a.m. Sunday by the time he finally decided to close his eyes.
He figured it was unlikely Kabul, where his family lives, would fall to the Taliban in a forceful takeover. So he rested, assured his loved ones were safe.
Hours later, he awoke in his Kansas City metro home to terrifying images of the Taliban at the presidential palace as the government collapsed and the country’s leader fled.
Azizullah, who asked not to be identified by his full name out of fear the Taliban would harm his mother and siblings, grabbed his phone to reach his family. The calls wouldn’t connect.
He thought of the safety he was afforded in America. After working as a translator and legal advisor for the U.S. government in Afghanistan, Azizullah was given a special immigration visa in order to dodge death threats from the Taliban.
He thought of his sister as he watched Kabul crumble. She was a student, a freedom not allowed under Taliban rule decades ago.
“I see the girl who lost everything, every right,” he said, as he watched the Taliban sweep into Afghanistan’s capital. “The freedom that we enjoyed during our young age, she won’t be able to enjoy the freedom. And I’m so sorry for her; so sorry that we couldn’t give her what she deserved.”
Taliban leaders announced Tuesday they would respect women’s rights within the norms of Islamic law. But the announcement was met with skepticism following the regime’s history of depriving women and girls of basic freedoms, including education. Historically, those who disobeyed could face rape or execution as punishment.
Azizullah remained in shock for the several hours it took family to contact him through WhatsApp messages, now their only means of communication due to poor connectivity issues.
They told him they were doing fine. He doesn’t know if that’s true. He fears they’re saying that to keep his worries at bay.
After putting his own life at risk to work alongside the U.S. government, Azizullah was granted a green card and safety across the ocean, but his family was not.
Many other Afghan immigrants in America are navigating the same fears he is; he knows of several in the Kansas City area.
Jewish Vocational Service, one of the largest immigration services in the metro, has resettled 185 Afghan refugees since 2015, according to executive director Hilary Cohen Singer. She said that number decreased to about 15 or so people each year for the past three years.
“If somebody wants to harm us, they can do that through our families,” Azizullah said of the Taliban.
For now, his family remains hunkered down inside their homes. They don’t answer the door. They don’t go out for groceries.
Watching from the other side of the world, Azizullah feels lost.
‘Future looks very dark’
On Aug. 7, Lt. Col. Russell Jackson — recently retired from the U.S. Army and now living in Warrensburg, working as an attorney — received a Facebook message from a friend in Kabul.
“Taliban is taking the control of major cities of Afghanistan and they are warning the people who are against their ideas and worked with the foreign organizations and troops and recently they killed lots of the people which were in a such category,” it read. “I do not want to prolong the discussion and take your time to read the message, just I can say that mentally I am in a bad situation and my future looks very dark.”
The friend asked Jackson, 55, whom he worked with during Jackson’s time in Afghanistan from May 2013 to May 2014, to help him procure a visa in the hopes of taking refuge in America.
Another message came a week later.
“Still I am on home. There no way to escape. Taliban is around us.”
Like many other Afghans who served alongside the Americans, the man told Russell he was scared to leave his doorstep as he got word that the Taliban was searching people’s homes.
“This has been incredibly emotionally distressing for me,” said Jackson, who served as a legal advisor to the Afghan Ministry of Interior Affairs, and as deputy staff judge advocate. “It’s very difficult for me to watch my government, in my opinion, effectively back out on our commitments.”
The fall of Kabul marks the final chapter of America’s longest war, which began after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
For years, the U.S. sought an exit from Afghanistan. Then-President Donald Trump signed a deal with the Taliban in February 2020 that limited direct military action against the insurgents. President Joe Biden announced his plans to withdraw all American forces by the end of August.
The Taliban seized nearly all of Afghanistan in just more than a week, despite the billions of dollars spent by the U.S. and NATO over nearly 20 years to build up Afghan security forces, the Associated Press reported. Days earlier, an American military assessment estimated that the capital would not come under insurgent pressure for a month.
“Just as a fellow human being, I cannot conscience the idea that we are leaving literally thousands of Afghans who worked with us and for us, and leaving them to their fate, particularly there in Kabul,” Jackson said. “As an American, that’s not what we do.”
As he examined an image taken Monday of people clinging desperately to the outside of a moving aircraft at Kabul’s airport, the memories flooded back.
He’s driven around the bend in the road to the airport, past the aromas wafting from restaurants and the squeals of kids playing stickball in the street.
He knows the sacrifices that made those freedoms possible. He knows what it took from Americans like himself. He knows what sacrifices it took from Afghans (like Azizullah).
The Afghan people deserve a chance at peace, he said. A chance to end the tortured history many have already endured.
“I thought America had the ability as a stabilizing force to go long term and maybe make a change,” he said.
He called on the Biden administration to demand that the Taliban provide a corridor of safe passage for those who want to get out.
“Everything I hear from the White House is just milquetoast, standard quips and quotes that you hear at any briefing,” he said. “You know, that’s doing nothing for the people who are in harm’s way.”
A call to speak out
Since the news broke out of Kabul, Azizullah, a student, hasn’t been able to bring himself to turn on his computer to study.
“You’re physically here, but mentally back with our families,” he said.
He last heard from his family Monday night. His brother messaged him to say Taliban members had been outside their home.
“I realized that they might know my identity, and they will try to harm me through harming my family,” Azizullah said.
Azizullah left Kabul a couple years ago. The city was bustling. He dined. He studied. He and his neighbors walked through the streets with guaranteed rights.
Now, the Kabul he sees reflected on social media seems silent. As if its 4.5 million residents fled all at once.
He watches other parts of the world move forward as Afghanistan moves backwards. Rights are at risk of being strangled.
That’s why, despite the unknown confronting him, Azizullah said he would choose to stand up for Afghanistan and stand beside the U.S. again if given the chance.
Azizullah is longing for people to speak out. To demonstrate. To remind the world what the Taliban has taken from so many.
“We don’t want to world to forget us again,” he said.
The Associated Press contributed.
This story was originally published August 18, 2021 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Watching Kabul from Kansas City: Afghan family, Army veteran share fear for family, friends."
