Forced to flee Afghanistan after working for the U.S. Army

Mohammad Haroon Anwayi grew up in a Talibanterrorized area.

“They used religion only as a cover, but their actions were in no way related to our [Muslim] religion. Their violence has nothing to do with religion.”

He witnessed destruction, killing of civilians and government workers for no reason; he saw women confined to the home and girls denied school.

In 2001, American and Afghan military started working together to make things right, as he saw it, for his countrymen.

In 2008, when he graduated from high school, where he had learned basic English, he wanted to do something important, he says.

He applied for a job as a translator for the U.S. Army. The Army added him to the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT), a U.S. government unit working in wartorn and politically unstable states. Later, he became a cultural advisor.

“This was never a safe job,” Mohammad says. “It was war. A lot of people, a lot of translators, died.”

Stationed in the South Province, where the Taliban was still powerful, violence steadily increased, he says. His parents, three brothers and four sisters feared for him.

He sympathized but was certain he was taking the righteous path, he says.

“I knew I was on the good side. We are trying to get stuff straight and establish government in the country,” he says. “I was seeing the threat, and I knew only one way to fight it was to establish a rule of law. That is what I was trying, with the team, until the last moment of opportunity.”

Mohammad’s wife, Maghfera, is a wide-eyed, softspoken, frequently smiling and impeccably polite young woman from his hometown. Like his family, she urged him to return to the safer capital. But he knew the PRT was slated to disband in 2014 and he intended to stick with it to the end.

Staying alive that long would prove difficult, he says.

Not only did he see many of his team members — both Afghanis and American soldiers — suffer casualties and death, but each time he traveled to see his wife, he risked life and limb.

“We usually traveled in convoys, the safest, though there was the potential of bombs. You could take a flight, not usually available, or taxi — but in taxis you stood a good chance of being pulled over, dragged from your seat and executed.”

The Taliban, the only terrorist group on his radar at the time, had ways of knowing who worked for the Americans, he says. For one thing, word got around in a small town. Or they could drag you out and examine your hands.

“If your hands were soft and clean, they assumed you worked for the U.S. government, and they would kill you.”

Two years before the PRT shuttered, the American military began the process of applying for refugee status for Mohammad.

He hoped to live in Kabul, and he remained there for a couple of months.

“But it was no life. I can’t go anywhere. Can’t even visit my father’s village.”

He could trust his family and closest friends, he says, but as for everyone else, he didn’t know who approved of his efforts and who saw him as a traitor.

Though he spent seven years working, living and entering combat situations with American troops, and though those very Americans launched his refugee resettlement application, Mohammad says he still underwent strict vetting — “examining your work history, background checks,” he says. “I had to take tests, including a polygraph, just to work for the U.S. in the first place.”

And by this time, the couple also had a child, 2-year old Ahmad, whose security was essential.

The family of three resettled through the International Rescue Committee, which has offices in our neighborhood. They were placed in a tiny apartment near Richland College.

Life in America started out depressing, he says, but soon the American soldiers with whom he’d worked in Afghanistan began contacting him — calling, texting and even visiting to see how he was doing.

“With my Army friends coming to visit, it felt good. It reminds you that you were part of a big thing, and that is good.”

And he began working right away — doing what?

“Everything,” he replies with a barely perceptible laugh.

He worked every odd job he could find that matched his skills and wound up working long hours as a mechanic at a body shop. Now, in order to spend more time with his family and to help in-laws moving from Afghanistan to the United States, he’s working as a pizza deliveryman.

He has moved to a bigger apartment in the Lake Highlands area so he can temporarily accommodate his wife’s brother, Abdul, and Abdul’s wife, Shrifa, and their young child, Masi — that family also is part of the UN Refugee Resettlement program.

“When I came, we had no one. We want to give our family something to come to.”

Maghfera, clad in a colorful veil and a dress over black pants, smiles and nods, popping up from the couch to attend to the baby or to deliver a gorgeous tray of fruits and nuts.

With Mohammad translating, she says she is grateful that her family has security and that her brother is here.

“If it was safe, though, I would be home,” she says.

Mohammad turns so he isn’t facing his wife’s sad eyes, or maybe so she doesn’t see his.

“There doesn’t seem like much of a chance of going back.”