An Afghan man who spent years helping US forces in Afghanistan is shot and killed in Washington

Then, in August 2021, the U.S. pulled out of Afghanistan and the Taliban took over.

Mohammad Ahmadi, Ahmad Yar’s cousin, was already in America after also working for the U.S. military. The two talked on the phone about how to get Ahmad Yar and his family out of Afghanistan. Ahmadi said his cousin could see the Taliban soldiers walking through the streets of Kabul and was worried they would discover he’d been an interpreter for the U.S. military.

“He said, ‘I don’t want to get killed in front of my wife and kids,’” Ahmadi said. When he wasn’t able to get out of the crowded Kabul airport, Ahmad Yar went to northern Afghanistan in hopes of getting into Uzbekistan. When that didn’t work, he and his family went to the northwestern city of Mazar-e-Sharif, where he and his family were able to get on a flight to the United Arab Emirates and then eventually travel to America.

Even when laying low in Mazar-e-Sharif, Nasrat would go out of his way to assist other Afghans who also had come to escape the Taliban — greeting them on arrival to the strange city, bringing their families to stay with his, and feeding them, while all waited for flights out, Malone said.

“Nasrat was very different, because even though he was needing help, he was always helping me,” she said.

While waiting at the interim transit camp in the United Arab Emirates, he asked for writing supplies for the children so he could teach them English before they arrived in the U.S., Malone said. “It was really important for him for his kids to get an education and for them to … have opportunities they never would have had in Afghanistan.”