Eleven of the 23 people rescued were children, according to Project Dynamo.
Leaders of the civilian rescue group Project Dynamo flew another 23 American citizens and green-card holders out of Taliban-controlled Afghanistan and into New York over the weekend.
Eleven of the 23 people rescued were children, according to Project Dynamo.
After getting vaccinations and Covid-19 tests on Thursday, the group flew on a commercial flight out of Kabul to the United Arab Emirates on Friday morning. They then boarded a plane to New York, which arrived around 7 p.m. on Saturday.
This operation comes on the heels of another successful rescue flight in December, when Project Dynamo evacuated 47 American citizens and permanent residents from Afghanistan.
Project Dynamo rescued 116 people on its first flight in late September, in the wake of the Biden administration’s bungled withdrawal from the country.
Successful rescues of Americans and American allies have become increasingly rare in recent weeks, as most flights out of Afghanistan are grounded.
“This was by far our fastest operation that we’ve ever done,” Bryan Stern, a security consultant and military veteran who heads Project Dynamo, said of the weekend rescue. The operation – from finalizing the flight manifest, to lining up funding and boarding the plane – came together in a matter of days, Stern said. “Usually these things take a few weeks,” he said.
Project Dynamo, which is completely donor-funded, focuses its rescue operations on American citizens and lawful permanent residents who can board commercial flights to the U.S. But Stern said their operations are much more complicated than simply going on Expedia to book flights out of Kabul.
“If today you want to go buy 23 seats on a flight from Kabul to America, you can’t do it. Kam Air has seats sold out in bulk all the way out to 2023 in some cases,” Stern said. “The reality is our manifests and the planes that we go on are tailored for us. We call up the airlines, and we negotiate with the brokers and the carriers and the charters and all these different people, and we say, ‘Yeah, I need a flight that does this, and I need you to find me one, either one that exists or make me one, just for me, and then if you guys can profit on it also, then so be it.’”
Stern said his organization “never ever” talks or negotiates with the Taliban.
“No one from Dynamo has ever spoke to the Taliban. No one from Dynamo ever will talk with the Taliban,” he said. “I don’t ever want to be described as someone who talks to the Taliban.”
Stern said rescuing people from Afghanistan is getting harder for a variety of reasons. The weather there is cold, food is scarce, and the whole country is increasingly dangerous.
“It’s not stable,” he said. “That volatility leads to confusion, and what’s true today may not be true tomorrow. And that’s a big thing.”
Confusion over the 5G rollout made scheduling this latest flight difficult, Stern said.
Stern said he intends to continue with Project Dynamo’s rescue operations. He said he would like to partner with the federal government to move more vulnerable people, including Afghans with approved special immigrant visas who meet U.S. Department of State requirements. Despite Project Dynamo’s success, the group hasn’t been included in a larger coalition of veterans groups that has partnered with the State Department.
“My big goal, my really super big goal, is to figure out a way to work with the State Department,” Stern said. “Even though they don’t want to work with me, I want to work with them, badly.”