Abdul Rashid Shirzad, who spent nearly five years working as an interpreter for the US Special Forces in Afghanistan, has finally made it out of the country after multiple failed attempts, including one in which he hurt his leg jumping over a wall and saw his 8-year-old son being nearly trampled by a crowd at the Kabul airport. Shirzad said the US military terminated his contract in 2013 after he failed a routine polygraph test, according to CNN. The US Embassy in Afghanistan cited a “lack of faithful and valuable service” while rejecting his 2015 Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) application.
“Why (have) the American soldiers forgotten about us? After everything we did, the sacrifices we made? Why are you leaving us behind?” he said in a voice recording sent to CNN on August 18, three days after the Taliban seized Kabul and, effectively, Afghanistan from the Ashraf Ghani-led government. “They’re going to cut our heads off if they find my location.
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“I don’t want to be left behind, I don’t want to be killed by the Taliban. I don’t want them to kill my kids. Please, somebody, help me,” he had pleaded.
While the Taliban announced a general amnesty as part of its efforts to allay global concerns regarding its rule, Shirzad was a potential target for several reasons. Apart from his work for the US military, he belongs to the persecuted Hazara ethnic minority and has vehemently spoken out against the Taliban in interviews to Western media organizations.
A lieutenant commander’s recommendation letter said Shirzad had never “hid” or “shied from challenge or danger.”
Shirzad landed in Washington, DC on August 26, along with his family, with the help of former US colleagues, British special forces members, and CNN journalists. Thousands of Afghans who worked for the US military and had applied for a SIV have been left behind after the US completed its troop withdrawal ahead of an August 31 deadline for foreign troops to leave the country.
