'The situation is very painful': Afghans in Houston and in home country watch with dismay as Taliban takes control

Sanya Wafeq called her parents in Afghanistan a few days ago with a warning: Get out. Halfway across the world, her folks headed to Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul. They had their visas, passports and plane tickets. While they were waiting to depart, however, they got the news — the Taliban had entered the capital city. Then their flight was canceled. In the days since, Wafeq — and the rest of the world — has watched Afghanistan’s 20-year experiment with Western democracy collapse along with the dreams of many to leave the country. She watched with terror as violence erupted at the airport, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled the country and thousands of Afghans crowded the tarmac at the airport. “I have no idea what we are going to do,” said Wafeq, 30, who lives in Richmond and works at a refugee settlement program. An Afghan businesswoman, she moved to the United States in 2015 after the Taliban targeted her for being too Western and for running her own company, a clothing line. She is among the Afghans who have watched helplessly from the U.S. or while trapped in Kabul or other parts of Afghanistan as the Taliban, a fundamentalist Islamic militia known for its brutality when it was last in power two decades ago, has overrun the country. Many had thought they had weeks or months to get out and were waiting on special visas to the United States. But the government collapsed, and American troops withdrew to the airport. ‘I feel like crying’: Houston protesters denounce Taliban takeover of Afghanistan’s government On Monday, President Joe Biden defended his decision to complete the pullout of U.S. troops by Sept. 11, a process set in motion by a 2020 agreement between the Taliban and the Trump administration. Biden, a longtime critic of the war in Afghanistan, said he would “not repeat the mistakes we’ve made in the past.” Officials from the U.S. Departments of State and Defense said they would shift thousands of additional troops to secure the airport and evacuate American citizens and other “particularly vulnerable Afghan nationals” and to “accelerate the evacuation of thousands of Afghans eligible for U.S. Special Immigrant Visas,” such as former or current interpreters and their family members. About 2,000 have arrived in the U.S. over the past two weeks, but experts estimate some 88,000 remain in the country. ‘Everybody is just lost’ Afghan nationals who spoke to the Houston Chronicle voiced dismay at the speed with which the Taliban have swept across the country, which had remained under a pro-Western government even as the U.S. military presence shrunk. The Taliban overran a superior Afghan military, one equipped with armor and an air force. Three interpreters in Kabul — who asked not to be identified to avoid being exposed to additional danger — spoke to the newspaper. One, who moved to Houston in 2017 to escape retribution from the Taliban, had returned to his homeland a few weeks ago, to see his family, for what he assumed would be the last time. He was scheduled to leave on Thursday, but the Taliban’s advance was so swift that he now isn’t sure if he will be able to depart the country. He is now in hiding. “I made the worst decision,” he said. “Everybody is just lost. … It’s so heartbreaking. You can’t help seeing women and kids running in circles.” Another who spoke to the Chronicle said he and others with whom he had worked received letters from the Taliban telling them they would be killed. “Three days ago, the Taliban came to find and execute or kill me,” one interpreter said. “Luckily I was not there.” A ‘painful’ situation Back in Houston, Afghans watched in horror as images emerged of thousands fleeing to Kabul’s airport, some so desperate to escape that they clung to the wheel wells of planes, only to fall to their deaths. “Every single Afghan I speak to, they are suffering so bad,” said Shukrullah Faizi, 40, who moved to Houston in 2007. “We feel embarrassed as a nation. … My mind is everywhere. I am very mad.” Faizi moved to the U.S. in 2007 after working for the U.S. military as a civil engineer. He settled in Houston. But many of his relatives remain in Afghanistan, and he is worried what will happen to them. He also feels betrayed by the U.S., which invaded and occupied the country after terrorists attacked Washington and New York City on Sept. 11, 2001. U.S. leaders had vowed to eliminate Afghanistan as a safe haven for terrorists such as Osama bin Laden, who was later killed in Pakistan in 2011. The recent moves by the U.S. to pull out of the country emboldened the Taliban, he said, and ISIS too. “There are more terrorists — except the U.S. was able to kill Osama bin Laden,” he said. “The situation is very painful” About 2,000 Afghans have resettled in Houston in the last five years, said Cress Clippard, with Combined Arms, a Houston-based nonprofit veterans organization. Left behind: As family of slain Afghan interpreter arrives in Houston, questions linger about 18,000 civilian partners remaining Local veterans were working Monday to try to assist many of the men and women who’d worked alongside them during long deployments. As the war has dragged on, interpreters have spent years struggling to navigate the bureaucratic process necessary to come to the U.S. Their support of the American effort could now prove fatal, given the precarious situation in Afghanistan. “The process is not made to get people here in a manner that would suit their situation,” Clippard said. “Most people we are working with have had letters put on their door by the Taliban saying they are going to kill them. When someone says their lives are threatened, we don’t have years to process this. “Many organizations like ours have been pointing out problems with the system for years and years. And here we are, culminating now with people falling off the outside of planes at Kabul’s international airport. He and others have advised Afghan contractors to upload pictures of their diplomas or work documents and then destroy any connection of their work with the military or other American organizations. “It’s really poignant that we’re at a point that people worked with the U.S. for years and now we’re asking them to destroy every link (to America),” he said. Still hoping Sayed Hussaini, 31, moved to Houston in 2015 after four years working with American service members. He left after Taliban insurgents targeted his brother, killing him with a roadside bomb. Now Hussaini lives in Houston with his wife, but his parents and five siblings remain in Afghanistan. “The situation surprised everyone,” he said. He’d assumed his parents had a few weeks, that they would have time to get their visas and get out of the country. Then, they woke up to find the Taliban in the streets, the government collapsed and American troops holed up in the airport. He has tried to maintain hope. “We still have time,” he said Monday. “They’re not dead yet. And the Americans are still at the airport.” But his despair was palpable. And so was his frustration. FIREFIGHT: A shootout in Mexico left 23 dead and led ATF investigators to Houston Wafeq, the businesswoman who moved to Richmond, felt much the same. “I really don’t know what the world was doing in the last 21 years,” Wafeq said. “I really don’t know what kind of game they are playing. It’s a matter of peoples lives.” She said she wept as she watched video of the flag of Afghanistan taken down. “I was thinking, ‘What happened?’ We don’t have any identity right now. We are no one.” And she despaired for the country’s women — how they would fare under the Taliban’s repressive ideology. In Afghanistan, she had a business running her own clothing line. A decade ago, she helped hold some of the first fashion shows in the country, using her countrywomen as models. The idea, she said, was to empower Afghan women. She was thinking of them — and many others who had aspired to more. “All those women — who worked so hard — they are nothing,” she said. “What about all their education, everything they have given to their country?” st.john.smith@chron.com twitter.com/stjbs

'The situation is very painful': Afghans in Houston and in home country watch with dismay as Taliban takes control

Don’t Miss This Deal!
26 WEEKS FOR 99¢

Enjoy the many benefits
of being a subscriber.

Keep reading with
unlimited digital access.

SALE ENDS SOON! | CANCEL ANYTIME