Home-based command center created to get Afghan allies out

A former Army interpreter from our area has created a command center in his house to bring Afghan allies to safety. Now he’s battling the clock as U.S. troops prepare to leave the Kabul airport by Aug. 31.

The death toll in yesterday’s terror bombing is now beyond 170 people. For Ismail Khan’s family, it was a close call.

“My own family, my own family was there, and I lost contact with them for two hours after the bomb. They lost their shoes. They were like ‘bare feet’ running. It was a nightmare. I can’t explain it in words what went through my mind in those two hours,” Khan said.

Khan has turned his home into a command center for getting information from Afghan allies and families still stuck in that country to the U.S. government. Afghan friends spend hours using their computers to fill out online forms.

As we visited him, he got word of another hurdle.

“I just got the word that Kabul airport is completely shut down. No one is going in unless they have a blue passport or a green card,” he said.

Khan worries that it locks out people like him. He was a Special Forces translator for six years before coming to Washington on a special immigrant visa.

“They risk everything to stand with the U.S. forces when they need it. The most, this is their time now. Why we can’t stand with them? why we can bring them to safety?” he said.

The U.S. confirmed more than 4,000 people were brought out of Afghanistan today — nearly 110,000 over the last two weeks. But in Khan’s command center of compassion — that’s not enough.

“What should the United States do now bring everyone home. But how can they do that? Uh, do you shouldn’t be a deadline. They shouldn’t put a deadline. The deadline should be when they bring the very last person out,” he said

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