EXCLUSIVE: A former combat interpreter with the U.S. military in Afghanistan, also a permanent resident of the United States, is trapped in the Taliban-controlled country after traveling to Kabul in July to attempt to evacuate his family amid the Biden administration’s withdrawal of military assets from the region.
Zekria, 31, who has lived in Arizona since 2015 and arrived in Kabul on July 17 to help his family to safety, told Fox News the Biden administration did not have a"clear evacuation plan." Fox News is withholding his last name.
"They were not qualified SIVs [part of the Afghan Special Immigrant Visa program]. I can say that," he said."There are a lot of people like me. We are the ones who are qualified. We put ourselves and our families in danger, and they took people that don’t even have documents." "They know my information and my family. So after six years, I came back to help my family to get somewhere safe," he explained. As is the case for many Afghans who aided the U.S. military and who remain in Afghanistan, the Taliban have visited Zekria’s family home, he said.
"There is no safety for anyone – especially for interpreters and the ones who worked with Americans, their families, plus all of the military and the Afghan military – they just arrest whoever worked for the government," he said."This is why I was scared, and why I came to Afghanistan, to do something, at least, to save my family, but it didn’t happen, and now I got stuck here, too.
"There is curfew at 10 p.m. and the Taliban, every night, is getting into houses. They are beating people. I am witnessing it," Zekria said, adding that the Taliban are"searching people’s phones and pockets."
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