Pakistan once again played a key role in facilitating the evacuation of civilians from Afghanistan after it rescued an interpreter who had saved the incumbent US President, Joe Biden, and two other US senators from the Taliban attack during a snowstorm in 2008.
The then-senators Joe Biden, John Kerry, and Chuck Hagel along with a number of experts were on a fact-finding mission in Afghanistan in 2008 when their helicopter was forced to make an emergency landing in a remote Afghan valley due to a blizzard.
Aman Khalili, an interpreter of the then-Afghan government who was also working for the US military, risked his life and ensured the safety of the US senators and other members of the mission as they were extremely vulnerable to an ambush by the Taliban during the snowstorm.
While thousands of civilians fled Afghanistan for the US on Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) before the 30 August deadline of US military withdrawal, Aman Khalili and his family were left behind because they failed to secure SIV despite making several appeals, all of which went in vain.
Desperate to escape Taliban rule, on 31 August, Aman Khalili then contacted the US President, Joe Biden, and reminded him of the efforts he made to save the fact-finding mission from an ambush thirteen years ago.
Eager to return the favor, President Biden directed diplomatic authorities to launch efforts to ensure a safe exit of Aman Khalili, his wife, and five children.
The US officials then contacted Pakistan’s government to facilitate the rescue of Aman Khalili from the war-torn country. The civilian and military leadership of Pakistan successfully negotiated with the Taliban government to provide a safe passage to Aman Khalili and his family.
As a result, the Khalili family first moved from Mazar-i-Sharif to Kabul and then to Helmand province, which borders Balochistan, before entering Pakistan. From there, Pakistan Army received them and moved them to Islamabad. They moved to Doha, Qatar, from Islamabad before recently leaving for the US on a special flight.
The Human First Coalition (HFC), a US-based NGO run by two Afghan nationals that has evacuated hundreds of Afghan citizens from the war-ravaged country, supervised the Khalili family evacuation mission.
In an official statement, the HFC disclosed that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Congressman Jeff Fortenberry, Senator Chris Coon, Director of Task Force Islamabad Mark Terkowski, and other senior US officials were in direct contact with Pakistan for rescuing Aman Khalili and his family.
The HFC lauded Prime Minister, Imran Khan, and Chief of Army Staff, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, for providing assistance on a humanitarian basis by rising above differences and rescuing the Khalili Family in only five days after stakeholders from both sides first came in contact.
