The terrorists Nasratullah Sepahizada interrogated are now running the Afghan government. And they’re coming after his family.
In mid-December, Nasratullah Sepahizada received the call he’d long been dreading: Taliban warriors had barged into his older brother’s office in Kabul and arrested him.
For a week, he said, they held his brother in prison, torturing him physically and mentally. Sepahizada expected his brother would be killed.
“They’re terrorists,” he said of his brother’s captors. “You cannot say anything. You just have to wait and look at them and ask for mercy.”
Sepahizada reached out to a former administrator he knew with U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, who worked through back channels to get his brother released. But the threats from the Taliban continued. “The DEA told me he needs to hide, he needs to move to a different city,” Sepahizada said of his brother. “Or, if he can, he needs to leave the country.”
Sepahizada said his brother has since traveled to Pakistan, but it’s a temporary fix; he has no job and no income, and when his visa expires he’ll have to return to Afghanistan. Sepahizada, who lives in Virginia, also has three more siblings and many nieces and nephews still in Afghanistan. He worries they’ll be targeted, too, in part because of their connections to him.
For over a year, early in the Afghanistan war, Sepahizada worked as an interpreter for U.S. Special Operations Forces and the CIA. He helped FBI agents interrogate hundreds of terrorism suspects at Sheberghan prison in northern Afghanistan. He eventually parlayed that into a job doing anti-narcotics work with the fledgling Afghan government, working with the DEA to eradicate poppy fields and arrest heroin traffickers, and in the process making himself a high-value target of the Taliban, which relied heavily on the illegal-drug trade for funding.
Sepahizada relocated to the U.S. in 2008 after a series of attacks and threats on his life. But while he’s safe, he said, his extended family is not. For seven months now, Sepahizada has pleaded with U.S. officials to help rescue his relatives. So far, he’s received little assistance.
“The U.S. government,” he said, has “turned their back to all of us who served for them.”
Sepahizada is not alone. Tens of thousands of American allies and their family members remain trapped in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan after the Biden administration’s bungled withdrawal last August. In December, the Wall Street Journal reported that more than 60,000 Afghan interpreters and others who have applied for visas to seek shelter in the U.S. remain in Afghanistan. Of the 43,000 applications for humanitarian parole the U.S. government has received since last July, fewer than 2,000 have been processed, and the vast majority of those have been denied, the New York Times reported in February.
Civilian rescue groups that organized last summer to aid in the evacuation told National Review in December that the U.S. Department of State was “actively impeding” their efforts, and was doing little to rescue American allies, including allies with Special Immigrant Visas (SIV) and soldiers who fought alongside Americans in the 20-year-war. Many of those allies who remain are in hiding, and in some cases likely are starving during the frigid Afghanistan winter, a worsening drought, and economic mismanagement by the Taliban that has left the majority of Afghans without enough food.
Advocates for Afghan refugees and American allies who remain trapped in the country say the Biden administration has the authority and the ability to do more.
“The obstacles to SIV processing are capable of being overcome if the administration has a sense of urgency and put some importance on this,” said Adam Bates, policy counsel with the New York-based International Refugee Assistance Project, noting that the Taliban has a much broader conception of who assisted the U.S. than the U.S. government does.
“There’s absolutely nothing preventing the administration from saying, if you’re a sibling of somebody who’s been granted an SIV, we are going to consider that as part of some kind of designated parole program,” he said. “The administration has the power to do that. They just haven’t.”
The State Department defended its ongoing evacuation efforts in an email to National Review, saying it has a team coordinating across government agencies and working with advocacy groups and nonprofits “to facilitate the departure of those who wish to leave Afghanistan.” The agency added that coordinating flights out of Kabul “continues to be challenging.”
“As we’ve said before, we will be relentless in this effort as we stand by our Afghan allies and their families,” a State Department spokesperson said in an email.
Refugee advocates now worry that the escalating war in Ukraine will further draw American attention away from Afghanistan and away from the U.S. allies and their families who remain. President Joe Biden did not mention the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan during Tuesday’s State of the Union address.
“The Taliban would like for everyone to stop paying attention to Afghanistan,” Bates said. “To me it’s important that the Biden administration not be allowed to make people stop paying attention to Afghanistan.”
‘A Certain Quality We Could Not Shake’
Sepahizada, who is 42, grew up in a well-educated family in Mazar-i-Sharif, a transportation hub in northern Afghanistan that has historically been one of the most secular and socially liberal parts of the country. He said several family members, including his father and grandfather, served in prominent local government posts, and long fought for a more liberal Afghanistan.
When he was young, his family fled to neighboring Pakistan to escape the civil war that brought the Taliban to power in the mid-1990s. After the U.S. invasion in October 2001, and the Taliban’s retreat from Mazar-i-Sharif that November, Sepahizada, then in his early 20s and married, returned to Afghanistan.
In early 2002, Michael Hoskins was a member of a small U.S. Army special operations unit, attached to a special forces team and a CIA delegation deployed in Mazar-i-Sharif. Hoskins team needed an interpreter, and they set up interviews with a handful of locals. Sepahizada was the last. Hoskins said another candidate had experience working with the special forces team, and probably was a better English speaker at that time, but they chose Sepahizada.
“There was a certain quality about Nasrat that we could not shake,” he said, noting that Sepahizada evoked confidence and cultural competence, but spoke in a way that was “disarming.” That would be important, he said, because they expected that their work would entail less knocking down doors, and more time working with people. An average day could include breakfast with beggars, lunch with the police chief, and dinner with a local warlord, he said. They were tasked with helping to keep the Northern Alliance together, policing fights between different tribes.
“He was very honest, and it was our impression during the interview, and that is exactly what we got during the time we were together in Afghanistan,” Hoskins said of Sepahizada.
Hoskins said that after awhile other U.S. agencies started taking note of Sepahizada, who eventually started working with the CIA in Afghanistan, and then the FBI. Sepahizada said he was recruited by the FBI to participate in the interrogation of al-Qaeda and Taliban terrorists at Sheberghan prison in northern Afghanistan. For about 40 days straight, he helped the FBI interrogate hundreds of terrorists, many of whom openly threatened to kill him, he said.
“They would say, ‘As soon as we get out, we will definitely come after you, come after your family. We will find you,’” Sepahizada said. “Those terrorists right now are part of the Afghan government at this point. They were released, all of them released.”
‘You Must Leave Afghanistan’
After his stint as an interpreter, Sepahizada went to work in the presidential palace in Kabul, scheduling meetings with then-President Hamid Karzai. He then moved into anti-narcotics work with the Ministry of Interior, serving as a primary contact with the DEA and the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement.
John O’Rourke, the lead DEA agent in Afghanistan at the time, told National Review that Sepahizada served as the top aide to General Mohammed Daud Daud, Afghanistan’s lead counter-narcotics official, and he was the “go-to guy” for American and European anti-drug leaders.
“Everything first went to Nas,” O’Rourke said of Sepahizada. “He was keenly aware of what policy and operational tactics were being developed, and he grew into that role at a tremendously quick pace.”
Working with the DEA, Sepahizada said he was involved in the high-level planning of missions to eradicate poppy fields, arrest drug traffickers and producers, seize and destroy narcotics, and find alternative livelihoods for farmers. He was proud of the work, but it drew attention.
“I faced multiple suicide attacks in Afghanistan,” he said.
In 2008, after Congress created the SIV program, Sepahizada applied and moved with his family to the U.S. “I couldn’t stay anymore,” he said. “The kidnappers came after my son at home. My dad actually [said], you must leave Afghanistan, you must leave.”
Two years after he left Afghanistan, militants assassinated several of Sepahizada’s former colleagues at the Ministry of Interior, including his one-time boss, Daud Daud.
“The reason I survived,” he said, “is I made the right decision and came to the United States.”
Mason West, an active-duty U.S. Army operations sergeant who worked with Sepahizada early in the Afghanistan war, praised his former colleague’s efforts, for both the U.S. and Afghanistan.
“He’s done more for this country, and for his country, than I’ve ever done,” West said.
In the U.S., Sepahizada worked for years as a linguist and manager with Virginia-based Diplomatic Language Services, providing language and cultural training to the U.S. military. He now owns a Halal supermarket in the Washington, D.C., suburbs.
O’Rourke said the U.S. government owes it to Sepahizada to protect his family from Taliban reprisals. “Anybody that would be of meaningful value to him would be at risk,” said O’Rourke, who added that Sepahizada is not alone. “I’ve got a list of 300 right now that I’m trying to get out of Afghanistan. Nas, his story is not unique, unfortunately. It’s heartbreaking. The U.S. government in our withdrawal from Afghanistan, the way we did this was incredibly poor, at best. I think you could have taken a high-school ROTC class and they could have put together a better evacuation plan than the one that was executed.”
‘I Felt So Helpless’
Last summer, as the Taliban tightened its noose around Afghanistan, Sepahizada said he “almost had a heart attack.” In mid-August, he sent panicked emails pleading his case to his congressman, Democrat Gerald Connolly, and Virginia’s two Democratic senators, Mark Warner and Tim Kaine. “PLEASE HELP!” he wrote to Warner. “I cannot see my parents, my sister and my brother being killed and beheaded by Taliban. They must not be punished and pay the price due to my service to the United States. They are a big target.”
Connolly’s and Kaine’s offices sent Sepahizada’s information to the State Department. In an email to National Review, the State Department declined to comment specifically on Sepahizada’s case, but added that the agency is “deeply concerned about reports of retaliatory acts, including killings, abductions, harassment and intimidation” by the Taliban.
“We will continue to measure the Taliban by their actions,” a spokesperson wrote in an email. “We have been clear to the Taliban that, to earn legitimacy and credibility, they will need to protect – not trample – fundamental rights of Afghans.”
Seven months into the Taliban’s takeover, Sepahizada said he’s sure they have access to the documents that show his work with the Ministry of Interior, and to data that would identify his family. “The information that they’re holding absolutely will bring them to our doors,” he said.
The Taliban already has killed one of his family members, though likely not because of his relation to Sepahizada. Last fall, a Taliban soldier struck Sepahizada’s cousin on the head with his gun, while his cousin – a medical student and local activist – attended a protest. He suffered a severe head wound, and later died, Sepahizada said.
“It was a very tragic moment for us,” Sepahizada said. “Everybody was calling upon me, help us please, help us out. Every single night I felt so helpless. So helpless.”
While he has been unable to rescue most of his family members, Sepahizada has been working stateside to help other vulnerable Afghans, raising money for the privately funded civilian rescue efforts and helping to coordinate safehouses for vulnerable Afghans. Gary Maziarz, a former U.S. Marines staff sergeant who worked with Sepahizada, said one of Sepahizada’s family members in Afghanistan has been providing intelligence on the ground, and his relatives have taken strangers into their homes to keep them safe from the Taliban.
“I feel so bad, because it’s like, I can’t do anything to help his family, but I keep asking him for help with other people,” Maziarz said.
Maziarz was able to get Sepahizada’s parents and his aunt out of the country. They’re now in the United Arab Emirates. Sepahizada said they didn’t want to leave.
“My family, from the very beginning, we love our country. We love our culture. We don’t want to escape that place,” he said. “We kept fighting, fighting, fighting until the end, when there was no other choices.”
Hoskins has been trying to help Sepahizada get his family members out of Afghanistan. He said he believes they deserve priority, not just because of their relation to Sepahizada, but because many of them also aided the U.S. military, providing information, and serving as advocates in their communities for the American effort.
Hoskins said the botched withdrawal has likely set the U.S. back decades.
“People in other parts of the world will not forget this for 20 or 30 years, easily,” he said. “The reputation of the United States is, the United States will use you up. If the political situation in the United States is right when things go bad for you, they might help you, but they probably won’t.”
‘Then They Were Left Behind’
J. C. Hendrickson, senior director for refugee and advocacy policy for the International Rescue Committee, said the U.S. needs to speed up the processing of SIV applications, and it needs to offer more flexible options for allies and their family members who remain in Afghanistan.
The SIV program is limited to people who worked directly with the U.S. mission for at least a year, and their immediate families. The U.S. Refugee Admissions Program is a much broader program that is open to other Afghans who are at risk because of their U.S. affiliation, but who do not qualify for SIV. But Hendrickson noted that both programs have enormous backlogs, and USRAP is only open to Afghan refugees who are able to leave the country. “That’s obviously tricky in Afghanistan where it’s hard to move around,” Hendrickson said.
“From where I sit, the U.S. government needs to rapidly create a pathway for people who are in danger in Afghanistan who want to leave,” he added. “Right now, we have this patchwork of solutions that when you try to apply them in the real world they don’t really work for people who are still there, and that includes family members of people who were able to get out.”
Lora Reis, a senior research fellow in homeland security at the Heritage Foundation, said the Biden administration needs to do a better job vetting the refugees it brings into the country. She pointed to a U.S. Department of Defense Inspector General report released this month that found that Afghan evacuees who came to the U.S. last year after the withdrawal from Kabul were not vetted using all of the agency’s biometric data.
According to the report, the DOD identified Afghans with “derogatory information” in the agency’s database who are believed to be in the country, including at least 50 Afghans with information in DOD records “that would indicate potentially significant security concerns.” Those include individuals “whose latent fingerprints have been found on improvised explosive devices and known suspected terrorists.”
The August evacuation was so chaotic, the U.S. government didn’t know who it was bringing into the country, Reis said. More than 70,000 evacuees were brought to the U.S. last fall.
“It’s pretty clear they just grabbed a bunch of people, put them on a plane, maybe did minimal vetting of some,” she said. “What the government should be doing is focusing on legitimate populations of refugees, a manageable number, and thoroughly vetting them.”
Sepahizada said it’s frustrating to him that Afghans who wouldn’t have otherwise qualified to come to the U.S. were evacuated. “But my family is one of the most qualified,” he said.
The bulk of the people who were brought into the country last fall were admitted under what is known as humanitarian parole, which allows people to stay in the U.S. for two years, said Bates, with the International Refugee Assistance Project. Most will likely file for asylum, he said, but the asylum system also is backlogged, and is “a logistical nightmare.”
“They’re under a huge cloud of legal uncertainty, and it’s not even clear that they understand that,” Bates said of Afghans in the U.S. on humanitarian parole.
Bates said American allies who remain trapped in Afghanistan are justified if they’re angry.
“In July, Joe Biden looked right at the camera and said if you served the United States, there’s a home for you in the U.S. if you so choose. I think a lot of people believed him,” Bates said. “They had every reason, and were being told that the U.S. government would protect them and provide a place of refuge for them. And then they were left behind.”