Life and Death at Abbey Gate by Cook Mikael;Conlin Robert;

Author:Cook, Mikael;Conlin, Robert;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 31097986
Publisher: Casemate Publishers & Book Distributors, LLC
Published: 2023-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

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1 Task and Purpose, 10/10/21.

2 The Intercept, www.theintercept.com, The CIA’s Afghan Proxies, Accused of War Crimes, Will Get a Fresh Start in the U.S., 10/5/21.

3 CNN website, www.cnn.com, 8/23/21.

CHAPTER 10

Team Wins—Getting Them Out

After cooling my heels for four days waiting for some kind of bureaucratic breakthrough on Abdul and Mohammad’s SIV application, I knew we couldn’t wait any longer. So, on the morning of August 23 I started messaging everyone on Instagram I could think of who had political or military connections that might be able to help.

As I speed-scrolled, I spotted an Instagram page for a news organization called Atlas News. They had posted a viral video of the crowds of Afghans hanging on to a giant Air Force C-17 Globemaster plane as it taxied down the HKIA runway. It was a gut-wrenching video to watch: hundreds of people running alongside the plane, grabbing the wheel wells, bodies falling from the sky as the plane retracted its landing gear. The fallen bodies still smoldered by the time U.S. troops got to them, having skidded across the tarmac.

I couldn’t help but draw a parallel to the images from 9/11 and the people jumping from the burning World Trade Center towers. The war was ending the same way it started, bodies hitting pavement. Later, I read that among the Afghan civilians that fell from the plane that day at HKIA was Zaki Anwari, a 17-year-old rising star on Afghanistan’s national soccer team. He couldn’t bear the idea of never playing soccer again under Taliban rule, his brother said.1

Atlas News was posting real-time updates on what was happening at the airport, so I sent a DM to its Instagram account asking if they had any contacts that could help get Abdul and Mohammad and their families in. Surprisingly, I got an immediate response back with a list of contacts that might be able to help. It was the first of many times over the course of the next few weeks that I witnessed how motivated this random collection of strangers were to get as many Afghan allies out of the country as they could.

As I continued messaging the Atlas contact, he informed me that a Marine at HKIA had told him that there was an active IED (Improvised explosive device) threat at Abbey Gate, and for the time being they were only letting American passport holders through. It was also the first of many times I heard an IED threat communicated in a chat forum.

With the contacts they provided, Atlas News was instrumental in introducing me to the #DigitalDunkirk universe. Unfortunately, another news organization I won’t name was also instrumental in introducing me to the whole world, because for some reason they put my contact information in a news story and said I was someone who could help.

Whether this was an honest mistake or irresponsible journalism, I’ve never discovered, but within minutes my phone and email were blowing up with messages from Afghans begging for help. Many were heartbreaking to read.

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