Cia-backed Afghan fighters still waiting
WASHINGTON — During the frantic evacuation from Afghanistan in August, the U.S. troops securing the Kabul airport against suicide bombers and other dangers were not alone. At the direction of the CIA, agency-trained Afghan counterterrorism squads helped patrol the perimeter, secure the gates and get American citizens through them.
Those Afghan commandos stayed to the end and were among the very last allies to be evacuated. But even as some 80,000 other Afghan refugees quickly reached the United States, hundreds of the Cia-backed fighters and their families are among thousands who remained stuck at a sprawling refugee compound in the Emirati desert.
As weeks have turned into months, some members of the Cia-backed squads — which at times over the past two decades were accused of killing civilians and other wartime abuses — say they feel abandoned, victims of a chaotic withdrawal in which the speed with which departing Afghans reached the United States was often determined by nothing more than what kind of plane they left on.
Biden administration officials say they are on track to eventually come to the United States.
But the plight of the commandos underscores the issues continuing to plague the extensive evacuation, vetting and resettlement efforts five months after the abrupt Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in August.
At the most basic level, all of the Afghans who helped the NATO forces during the 20-year Afghanistan War and are now in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, are fortunate: They got out with their families and are safe. Since August, there have been a slew of
nonjudicial killings carried out against former government security force members who remained in Afghanistan.
Treatment based on planes
But interviews with half a dozen officials involved in the effort and people familiar with the accounts provided by some of the commandos help illustrate the major differences in how Afghans who got out are being treated based on which planes they boarded at the Kabul airport.
Afghans who got onto U.S. military planes are the more fortunate: They were taken to bases where deals with host countries allowed them to stay for only a few weeks. After they were vetted at such temporary transit locations, the Homeland Security Department invoked a rarely used “humanitarian parole” power to swiftly move them to the United States.
As a result, nearly all of those
roughly 80,000 Afghans have now already been able to reach the United States. Most of them have been resettled and are starting new lives — even though their applications for permanent status with a Special Immigrant Visa, or SIV, are still being processed.
By contrast, those Afghans who boarded non-u.s. evacuation flights, such as charters operated by the United Arab Emirates, were taken to facilities in host countries where they can stay indefinitely, including the Uae-run compound known as Emirates Humanitarian City. A significant portion of its roughly 9,000 refugee residents are Cia-trained fighters and their families, according to people familiar with the matter.
A vast majority of thousands of Cia-trained fighters and their families have already been relocated to the United States, American officials said. But that has made the waiting for the hundreds in United
Arab Emirates all the more painful, according to the former Afghan commandos.
Because those Afghans in places like Humanitarian City are safe, the United States is processing them through regular bureaucratic order, officials said. As a result, they are being required to wait there until their SIV applications are completed — which can take many months. Requirements for vaccinations and medical tests can further slow the process.
‘Standardized process’
Biden administration officials were reluctant to talk about or acknowledge the Cia-backed squads specifically. But they insisted that all the evacuees in Humanitarian City and other countries would be treated fairly.
“We’re working to develop a standardized process that ensures we make good on our commitments to our Afghan allies,” Emily
Horne, a National Security Council spokeswoman, said in a statement. “We cannot underestimate the anxiety that they and their families must feel. Those of us working on this want to alleviate that anxiety as best we can and make good on our country’s pledge to them.”
After the New York Times began asking questions about the group, American officials have tried to reassure them that they will get visas to enter the United States in the next three to six months, according to people briefed on the conversations.
There are also smaller groups of Afghan refugees still hoping to come to the United States scattered about elsewhere, including about 250 at a transit zone in Qatar. And there are about 200 at a NATO base in Kosovo, comprising several dozen men who were weeded out in the initial vetting of those otherwise eligible for humanitarian parole and so are undergoing additional screening, along with relatives staying with them.
But even as U.S. officials counsel patience, those who find themselves still waiting in the desert outside Abu Dhabi are growing frustrated. Those feelings appear particularly sharp among the counterterrorism units, who say they served the United States at significant personal risk to the end — even as other units surrendered to the Taliban or melted into the countryside.
“These guys should get credit for doing what they did for 20 years — fight our common enemy, al-qaida and the Taliban,” said Mick Mulroy, a retired CIA paramilitary officer and Afghanistan veteran.
Afghans in the Emirates said they would rather be in the United States while going through the visa process so they can begin their search for work and a new life immediately. And the longer they wait, the more the Afghans worry they may not make it to the U.S.