Title: Held Captive 100+ Days by the Taliban w/ Safi Rauf
Show: The Deep Focus Show
Date: 2025-12-19
URL: https://youtu.be/y4aXSSD0_Zs
Duration: 54:00

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[00:03] When I was in Afghanistan, every every day when we went on a mission, anything bad that came of it, we chocked it to like we're working for a better tomorrow, for a better future, for our our our or our or our or our or our or our or our or our or our or our or our or our our comrade, our soldiers, our you know, our battle buddies who died there. We were we we thought this we were doing this for a better tomorrow. If we went to some Afghan's home and we, you know, searched their house for weapons or for somebody we were looking for, we chocked it up to like, hey, we're doing it for a better tomorrow.

[00:34] We're doing for girls education. But what happened today? And when I see Afghanistan today, it infuriates me. What did why did we do all of that if we were just going to go back to the Taliban that were there in the first place? Hi, I'm John Kuryaku and welcome back to Deep Focus. Before we get started, I wanted to ask you, as I usually do, if you would do me a personal favor, and that is if you enjoy this content, please like, share, and most

[01:06] importantly, subscribe. It really, really helps us with the YouTube algorithm and it helps us get the word out. Well, I am very, very pleased today to welcome Safi Raou to the show. Safi has an amazing story. Safi's story in my view is really the culmination of the American dream. He was born in a refugee camp in Pakistan in 1994 and then as a teenager immigrated with his family to the United States where he became later on a hospital corman and a linguist for

[01:36] the US Navy. Safi graduated from Georgetown University on a premed track and then was accepted to medical school, but he elected to defer medical school so that he could return to Afghanistan to help people who needed the most help. He founded Human First Coalition, which works to evacuate refugees from Afghanistan. In December of 2021, while providing humanitarian relief in Kabell, Safi was

[02:07] detained by the Taliban and held for 105 days. He was subsequently released in early April 2022 following negotiations between the Taliban and the Biden administration. Safi, welcome to the show. You have a lot of guts and you have that unique that unique special thing where you feel compelled to help people before helping yourself. I want to first even before I

[02:39] ask a question just say you have my deepest respect and thanks for being on the show. >> Thank you John. Thank you for having me. >> Pleasure is mine. and and likewise, John, I've read your story and it's incredible and uh you know, I applaud everything you've done. >> Thank you very much for saying that. Thank you. Well, I want to start with just a quick overview of Afghanistan. The United States spent 20 years in Afghanistan. We weren't wanted. We weren't needed. We hadn't been asked to

[03:11] rebuild the country after after the initial response to the 911 attacks, but we made a decision at least the Bush administration and following subsequent uh administrations made the decision to go to Afghanistan to stay there and unfortunately to kill or displace a lot of people. So here we are 24 years later. tell us what Afghanistan is like today. Is it better? Is it worse after the US

[03:43] uh occupation? >> It's it's a complicated question. Um if we look at it what Afghanistan was 20 25 years ago. Um it was the infrastructure or basically everything uh that we have in the modern world that didn't exist. it was almost if Afghanistan was living a 10020 years in the past. Um today we

[04:13] do see Afghanistan as a country that's been rebuilt that has roads that has infrastructure, electricity, internet, uh people have access to the world, people have access to Facebook, all the social medias and they do get a lot of their information from there. On the other hand, it's also far worse. In when we invaded Afghanistan in in 2001, Taliban were fighting with AK-47s and beat up uh

[04:44] Hilux trucks. Today, they have over $90 billion worth of military equipment. That includes Humvees, that includes MRAPs, that includes planes, that includes M4s, all our modern technology or modern weapons. So what if if you look at Afghanistan when Taliban first came on August 15, 2021 and you compare that to today, you see the the the downward spiral of

[05:16] Afghanistan into more um people are becoming more conservative pe the especially the Taliban fighters, they're becoming more conservative. there's more. Uh, so we can't see it right now, but what is Afghanistan going to become in the next 10 years? >> You know, this is something I struggle with and I'm glad to have you on the show because you're not just Afghan-American. You have worked and lived in Afghanistan and you've seen the ugly side of Afghanistan. So I I've come

[05:47] to say that that the Taliban did not descend on Afghanistan from the moon and come down and you know out of from outer space to to settle Afghanistan. These are the these are the the fathers, the the brothers, the sons, the husbands of Afghan women um who have taken over the leadership of the country. The United States was there for more than two decades. We gave the Afghan people an idea of what a

[06:18] westernstyle democracy looks like. They didn't want a western style democracy. There was no historical precedent in Afghanistan for a western style democracy. They had the Loya Jurga system that they were happy with. Um and in the west we looked at these well what I would call atrocities that were being committed by the the Taliban against the Afghan people even against Afghan history and heritage. let's say the Bamian uh Buddhas for example, but at the end of the day,

[06:50] they chose the Taliban. Can you explain that? I think this is something that most Americans don't fully understand. >> Uh absolutely. This is exactly how I put it. It's uh it's it's ironic that you use the exact same words that Taliban didn't come from like some outer space other planet you know they they they are from that land they are from Afghanistan they are 99.9% of Taliban are from Afghanistan they are those people and

[07:20] when I say that that's where we went wrong that's where America went wrong you know in 200 until 2006 2007 there wasn't uh a significant insurgency in Afghanistan. Taliban laid down their weapons, went to the mountains or to their homes or to Pakistan. What happened was America undermined the Taliban or the people the people of Afghanistan. They thought they're going

[07:51] to go arrest, send them to Guantamo, uh torture them, they're going to kill their family members. and the people are aren't going to do anything. Taliban came back into existence because the American atrocities becau became because of the uh atrocities that the the government that was installed by America because of them. If you if you look at um so I spent a lot of time at the uh US embassy in in Kbble and I was with with

[08:23] JC at the time and you know with the with those teams we we used to go to the annex which Ariana the CIA station there and if you look at that geography the station is basically inside the presidential path. So, how ironic is it that the CIA station is inside the presidential palace? So, who is running the government at the time when Carzi was the

[08:55] president? And what he was trying to do is uh go and reach out to those people who had started some insurgency and that included Mullah brother that eventually the US reached an agreement with him uh the Doha agreement. He was trying to reach out to him. But what happened you know what happened there was Mullah brother was arrested and put in jail. Instead of him coming and Carzai they

[09:28] sitting together and talking and figuring out a way forward for the country they arrested him. They tortured him. He was in jail for many many many years and eventually he was released at the request of the American government and he was flown to Doha and the American uh you know Mike Pompeo sat down with him and reached an agreement without the the the say of the Afghan people. So you you you kind of think who was

[10:00] running the government. Was it just a puppet government in Afghanistan that the CIA was running and doing whatever they wanted to do? Um, so we go back to that. We didn't involve the people of Afghanistan in uh deciding what their future is going to be. And you put it exactly how I would put it. They didn't come from Mars. They were living there. Their families were there. Their houses, their children, their parents, their wives, all of them, they are from Afghanistan. And what we did is we chose one side and

[10:33] completely ignored and brutalized the other side. And that doesn't go well. You can only push somebody so far. >> It's exactly the same mistake we made in Iraq in 2002 where as soon as we crossed the border, we said that nobody who has ever been a member of the Bath party may participate in government. Well, everybody was a member of the Bath Party and most of them joined the Bath Party because they were forced to. It was the only way that they could work and earn

[11:04] money to feed their families. We just made it worse. I I wanted to ask you too, I'm I'm still thinking of these stupid mistakes that we made in Afghanistan because we didn't understand the culture and we didn't understand the country's history. I remember I was still at the CIA at the time where the US military made a decision that it was going to fight corruption in Afghanistan. And so the way they were going to do that was if you were a member of a certain tribe or a certain

[11:35] family, you were not permitted to serve in the Afghan military or police in that area. So if you were from Helmand for example, they sent you to Herat, right? Or you were from Kandahar, they sent you to Jalalabad. And what ended up happening is local residents just said, "I don't know who this guy is. He's not from this area. He's not from my family. He's not from my tribe. I'm not going to pay any

[12:05] attention to him, and I'm not going to do anything that he says." And Law and Order fell apart. Am I just misremembering this or was this a problem that led to bigger problems visav law and order? >> Absolutely. It was you see even here let's take an example of America right if we descend on American cities and American towns with with heavy military that is from another

[12:38] state and we go to the everybody's homes and round them up at in the middle of the night people are not going to just sit down and and watch that happen it's an inherent quality or inherent um uh Uh people don't just take and keep taking. They at at some point they're going to rise. And you said we made this mistake in in Iraq. It's not just Iraq. Every country we have ever gone to like go

[13:08] back all the way back to uh Vietnam uh Korea uh even you know in the 90s uh during the Cold War every South American country just the list goes on and on. We don't go and learn what the country is about and then we we we figure out based we we used we we involved those countries first of all like when we were conducting operations

[13:40] even we were conducting operations with our partners uh that were the Afghan military we didn't share intel with them we were like oh this is you know top secret SCI we can't share this with or if we were I it's it's ridiculous. It's their country. Um they know the geography and and you are right. Afghanistan has a very very specific culture. It has very specific norms. And for Afghan people, what is more

[14:10] important than their life, it's their dignity. >> And and when you send somebody who is who they don't know, they'll fight them. They'll fight them till till death. They're either going to win or die. There is no option for them. If you send some stranger that's going to just go into their house. And we did that for 20 years. We'd go in the middle of the night. They they're all sleeping. Helicopters come in, you know, surround the house. You go in, you turn their

[14:42] house upside down, you harass their woman, you harass their children, you take their mail, and you know, three days later, you release them because they didn't do anything. >> Absolutely. I've been on over a thousand over a thousand missions in Afghanistan over over a 4-year period with Rangers, with Delta, with SEALs, and I almost 80% of the missions that we went on, it was just false false information. What

[15:13] happens when you when you go to a country that the people need desperately need money? what they're gonna you you tell them, hey, if you send us this information, we're going to pay you this much money and and what happens is everybody is going to tattle on everybody. It's either it's either for money or personal grudges. >> We filled Guantanamo with false information. >> Absolutely. Absolutely. There's people who spent a decade in Guantanamo and all because of false information.

[15:44] >> Yeah, that's exactly right. One of the things that we saw here in the United States in the immediate period before sending combat forces into Afghanistan was reporting about Afghan women and girls being denied educations. They're not allowed to read in public. They're not allowed to sing. Uh they have to have the permission of their father or husband before leaving the house, etc.

[16:14] Has any of that changed? Is this a new more modern kind of Taliban or is this the Moola Omar era Taliban just come back to power? >> It it's completely they're going back to where they were. >> Wow. >> You know uh uh before 9/11 uh every all the schools that were built by the US for the women, they have all been closed. Women can't work. They can't go outside the house. They are making it

[16:46] every day. It gets worse. That's what I said is like just comparing the Taliban that is today to the Taliban from 2021 who made all kinds of promises. What what happened with Moola brother? Moola brother was sort of the middle of the road sort of uh he was going to compromise on some things but they sidelined him. He was supposed to be the leader of the Taliban when we we we sent him to Kabell, but now he's completely Awol. Uh and now the

[17:19] Taliban who are ruling are from Kandahar. uh those Taliban that that are the descendants of Moola Umar, the th those who don't believe in uh girls education, those who don't believe in women's rights, those who don't believe in women working, those who think that women should stay at home and they're basically just for bringing children. That's that's what they think. And that's the today's Taliban. Um and and it's it's extremely concerning. And you

[17:49] see when when when I was in Afghanistan, every every day when we went on a mission, anything bad that came of it, we chocked it to like we're working for a better tomorrow, for a better future, for our our our or our or our our comrade, our soldiers, our you know, our battle buddies who died there. We were we thought this we were doing this for a better tomorrow. If we went to some Afghan's home and we, you know, searched their house for weapons or for somebody we were looking for, we chocked it up to like, hey, we're doing it for a better

[18:21] tomorrow. We're doing for the girls education. But what happened today and when I see Afghanistan today, it infuriates me. What did why did we do all of that if we were just going to go back to the Taliban were there in the first place? And you know if if and every every every every al-Qaeda member that we we we look for eventually we found them in Pakistan or we found them. >> Oh, of course. Of course that I I made a career out of hunting members of the

[18:51] Taliban and al-Qaeda and every last one of them was in Pakistan all the way up to Osama bin Laden. >> Exactly. and and they weren't just you know sometimes they're like oh yeah they're in the tribal areas and just you know they are not they're sitting in Islamabad they're in Rahul Pindi they are in Lahore they are in in in Pashawar you know I I went to school in Pakistan >> every Friday every Friday prayer when you would come out of the mosque right outside there was somebody sitting uh

[19:23] had their boxes open tens of people collecting money for mujahedin for for the fighters in Afghanistan, for Taliban, for fighters in Kashmir, for fighters in every every fight that was being fought from a religious point of view and you you look at that and even today we're like okay so what should we do with Afghanistan? Let's ask Pakistan and it's just Afghanistan is a very complex

[19:53] country. The people are very complex and it needs complex solutions. It needs the people who understand Afghanistan. Afghanistan back in the days when um there wasn't a lot of transportation and uh people weren't really mingling together. You would go 30 minutes from your town, the the next town, they were a completely different people. >> If you look at, you know, there's a town that speaks Pashto. You drive 30 minutes, the next town they speak Farsy.

[20:24] >> Yes. >> The you drive another 30 minutes, they speak Usbach. You drive another 30 minutes, they speak like Tajik, you go they they speak uh, you know, Pashai, which is, you know, in in eastern southeastern Afghanistan. It's it's crazy to think that you can go into a country and just lump them into one category and and think you can uh you can change that. It's millions of people. You can't just go and harass people, brutalize them, and you think

[20:54] the people are going to accept you, >> especially a country like Afghanistan. >> You know, before I get too far a field, I I have to ask you about the recent um border skirmish, I guess we could call it, between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Uh the the numbers of of people killed and wounded varied wildly from as few as a dozen to as many as 200. But the fact of the matter is there was a lot of shooting between Pakistani military and

[21:27] uh and Afghan military. What happened to relations between the two countries? How did this this uh skirmish take place? >> Well, it's been it's a very long >> Yeah. What surprised me when I was when I was there was in in what high esteem the Afghans held the Indians but didn't say the same thing about the Pakistanis. >> Well, if you look at Pakistan, it it

[21:58] only came into existence in 1947. It didn't exist before that. And if you look at it, when the Brits came to the subcontinent, that whole area was called the subcontinent. It included India, current day India, Pakistan, Bangladesh. It was a huge chunk of area. And when the British decided to go further north into Afghanistan, they they they they got their asses beat.

[22:29] >> Yes, they did. >> You know, there were two Yeah. Historically, they sent 200 British soldiers. Every single one of them got killed and they left one person alive. They left one person alive who was a surgeon. They left him alive who was also shot in the leg. They let him live and an Afghan uh person actually let him uh live in his house. Gave him shelter in his house and uh it was in Coast Province. In coast province, an Afghan

[23:01] let him into his house, nursed him back to health, eventually dressed him in his own clothes and smuggled him across the border back to the his British uh government. So that's also things that Afghan people do. um uh you know Marcus Latrell who was uh who was uh uh captured uh well his team was killed in Afghanistan and he found shelter in an Afghan person's home and eventually uh he was rescued. So, so

[23:31] those kind of things have happened historically and well we are just veering off the subject but what happened the British what they did is they basically told the that uh Amanu Lahan was the the the person who they was ruling Afghanistan at the time. They made a pact with him. They were basically like we are not gonna come across the Durand line and you guys are not going to come to the other side of the Duran line and the Durand line was

[24:01] named after the person who did the uh the agreement. Well, what happened is that agreement was uh set to be expired in a 100red years and it did. So the land that goes all the way to almost bordering Islamabad and then on the qua side as well this land all belong to what was that day Afghanistan. So the Afghans have never accepted that border. uh and the people that live on both

[24:32] sides, they share more with the Afghans than they share with the Pakistanis that who speak uh Uru that part of Pakistan or they all speak Pashto. They have same culture, they share they intermar with each other, they have relationships, they they are the same um lineage, same tribes, but they're just divided by an imaginary line >> created by the British. created by the British. And what happened there was

[25:02] that those people because they also share the same uh sort of culture, same uh rules, the Pakistan didn't really understand what to do with them. And for the longest time, they were self-governing. They didn't send the military to to rule that area. It's the the the village elders, the village uh leaders, they they were the ones ruling those areas of Pakistan, the northwestern frontier

[25:32] province. Uh it wasn't part of and it wasn't it didn't belong to any um it didn't belong to any of the provinces either. It was uh it was uh federalized lands that were self-governing. But what happened after 911 is a lot of the Taliban went to hide in those areas with their relatives, with people they knew. And we we started drone strikes in those

[26:04] areas and started killing people, started, you know, doing drone strikes on weddings, doing drone strikes on family gatherings, on houses, funerals, everything. And those people became fed up and they started fighting back against the Pakistani government. And that's when the Pakistani government sent their military and the insurgency. I was actually in Pakistan at that time and that's when the insurgency started. That's when the Pakistani the TTP the Talib the

[26:35] Pakistani Taliban uh sort of came into existence from a local sort of struggle of the the people themselves. the Wazer from Wazeristan from Ararachinar from Kuram agency from agency they all created small movements to fight against the the Pakistani government and that is going on till today. So what they do is they Pakistan claims that some of those leaders live in Afghanistan. So they

[27:06] conduct air strikes in in in Afghanistan and in most of those air strikes they kill civilians and that's how it all started and the Taliban were like we we don't have air power we don't have long long range missiles but we can fight on the ground so they just went and they couldn't be stopped. uh the Pakistan can't Pakistan has a really really strong military in terms of air power in

[27:37] terms of long range missiles but they can't fight uh the the the type of guerrilla warfare that Afghanistan the people of Afghanistan can do. So when the Taliban started just going on the ground and uh doing small groupoup attacks, the Pakistani military was taken by surprised and a lot of their uh their their military posts were overtaken by the Taliban. Um and then what Pakistan did is they used long-range missiles and air power to uh

[28:08] conduct air strike on civilians on homes. Um so it it's it's not that it just came into existence. has existed since the creation of Pakistan. >> The Russian government announced recently that it was preparing to reestablish diplomatic relations with Afghanistan, which is a a major move. There are very very few countries around the world that have a diplomatic presence in Kabell. Um, for a fleeting moment, Donald Trump toyed with the idea

[28:40] publicly of reestablishing relations with uh the Taliban. That has come to nothing. It likely will come to nothing. What do you think that this new relationship between Russia and Afghanistan means? And do you think other countries especially countries like uh Iran, like China, like India uh will will normalize relations with uh the Taliban? >> Um you know, India has also said

[29:10] recently that they're going to establish diplomatic relations with Afghanistan. In fact, reopen their embassy in in Kabell. >> And af and and uh ironically, Pakistan was the first country who opened their embassy in Kabell. and they still have their embassy open in Kabell. Um, Russia has had presence in Kabell since the beginning of the Taliban um since August 15.

[29:41] It it's it's a very complicated relationship between Russia and Afghanistan. Um, Russia is Russia is in a bad place. Russia is in a very bad place right now. And Afghanistan is a country that historically a lot of countries has wanted to be present there. Um, the Chinese are there right now, but the Chinese have a really complicated way of working

[30:13] with different countries, especially what they're doing in Africa, what they're doing in Pakistan, what Afghanistan is not like that. China goes to a country, they're like, "We're going to give you a billion dollars." But they're not giving them a billion dollars. They're basically buying >> infrastructure their country. Yeah. >> And that doesn't work with Afghanistan. >> Yeah. it doesn't work. So, China figured that out and they decided not to invest in Afghanistan at all. So now

[30:45] Afghanistan is going to Russia and they have had talks for the last two three years and you know Russia if if they establish true real relationship with Afghanistan. Um it could be a good relationship for both sides. Afghanistan has a lot of uh natural resources that uh Russia really needs right now and Afghanistan doesn't have a lot of money, a lot of uh

[31:16] equipment and they could be beneficial to both sides but Afghanistan and Russia has a very complicated relationship and I don't think it's going to work out between them. Um, and there is all the all the other uh Russian uh the the Russian countries that separated in the '9s. All of those countries, Russia is kind of getting more foothold in all of those countries like Usbakistan, Tajikistan, uh, Kyrgyzstan, um, all of

[31:49] those countries. Russia is slowly getting a foothold. They're sending their troops there. Even when when the Taliban took over uh August 15 uh of 2021, the border along the the Tajjikstan border along uh northern Afghanistan and along Usbekistsan, the Russian soldiers came to secure those borders. It wasn't the Tajjighstan or Isbekiststan military themselves. The Russian military came and secured that

[32:19] border. So it it it tells that it kind of shows how much control Russia has on those neighboring countries to Afghanistan. So it's it's a Russian movement further south getting more countries. >> It seems to be more strategic in its formulation than what the United States has come up with. I I wanted to ask you too about um was something that's been very important in your life and it continues to be and that's the situation with the refugees. Um there are Afghan

[32:52] refugees, thousands of Afghan refugees who are um now being pushed out of Iran back into uh Afghanistan. The the Pakistanis have never wanted large numbers of refugees in Pakistan and have begun pushing them back into Afghanistan. So, what's the situation with refugees now? Is there really any hope for them? Or do you think that for the most part they'll be returned to Afghanistan whether they like it or not? >> Well, if you look at those refugees, there's not just thousand, there's

[33:23] millions about literally millions. Yeah. 1.4 million in Pakistan. And that's just official numbers. There's more. Uh there is over a few million in in Iran as well. And if you look at these people, they have been in those countries for decades. They were all born in those countries. The people who immigrated to those countries, they're dead. It's their children. So Pakistan and Iran and most of the countries in that region, almost all of

[33:54] the countries in that region, when when when you immigrate from another country and you have children there, your children don't automatically become citizens. >> That's right. There is no birthright citizenship. there's no birthright citizenship. You have to have uh uh you have to have generation from going back to hundreds of years uh in that country in order to become a citizen of that country. It does it doesn't just uh happen if you're born there. So all those children they don't even know Afghanistan. Some of them don't even speak

[34:25] and they have gone to school there. They have jobs there. They have businesses there. If if you go to Lahore, some of the biggest businesses in Pakistan are owned by Afghan refugees. They have clothing businesses that they import from China and in Lahore they have the biggest businesses. Similarly, in Pakistan, they have some of the biggest businesses there. They are billionaires, millionaires that are Afghan refugees. And what is happening right now is their businesses are being uh taken from them

[34:58] by force. and they're being sent back to Afghanistan. Um, I think the biggest issue with that is going to be for Pakistan in Iran themselves. You know, if you ask me about Pakistan, I know every corner of Pakistan. I know every street. I know every city. I know all of their military garrisons. I know where their ISI is. I know where uh their I know where their their um nuclear program is. And it's the cahoda which is

[35:31] in the mountains going on the road from Pashaw to Kuram agency that area they have their nuclear program there. So all of these refugees they know exactly what Pakistan is their geography. So sending them back to Afghanistan is a really bad move on their part. It's if if they lose everything they have in Pakistan and they're sent to Afghanistan with nothing and they have no way to move forward, it's a very easy

[36:02] recruiting uh population for TTP for the Pakistani Taliban. Um and similarly for Iran, it's a very easy tactic for the Taliban to recruit them for all from all different uh groups. uh al-Qaeda. It's a it's a good recruiting uh tactic for >> the Israelis recruited hundreds maybe more than hundreds of Afghan refugees in Iran to report back to them. >> Absolutely. And you know those uh the the people that we trained the the that

[36:34] were trained by SEALs by by CIA that were trained by Delta Force by Rangers there were thousands of them. There were thousands of special operations that we trained and taught them how to use all of our weapon systems. They can there are easy recruits for for any organization for even the Taliban that are in power right now and some weapon systems that they can't use can easily be used in their intelligence department in the Taliban intelligence department. They weren't able to use a lot of the

[37:05] sigant uh equipment that we had uh given to them the CIA had given to them. um the Taliban couldn't use that. But eventually they learned because some of the people that were working in the previous government eventually had no choice but to go and join the Taliban and teach them how to use that. >> You're exactly right. I'd like to I'd like to ask you also about your own um harrowing experience. Uh you had been

[37:36] doing this kind of work for a long time. You're there on the ground in Afghanistan and then you're arrested. Tell us about that. What that was like. >> You know, it's being in in that situation is I it's like uh I'm sure you have your own experience, but it's being taken against your will against and put in a place that you have no idea what's to become of you. you they they put a

[38:08] you know they cover your face, they put a bag on your head and you feel like you're being you know paraded to your execution and that was the fear every day and the the hardships on one side but what you are thinking that whole time it's more psychological than it's physical. The physical is easy. That's not hard. You get beaten up. You get uh it's cold.

[38:39] The the you're sleeping on the bare floor. You are tied or you have your hands tied or all of that is easy. What is hard is the psychological aspect of it day in and day out. One, they don't give you any information. They don't tell you why you're there. They don't tell you how long you're going to be there. They don't tell you what you did wrong. And just you you are just there. You are at their mercy >> and you don't know if you're going to be

[39:10] released next week or tried and sentenced to 50 years in a dungeon somewhere. >> Absolutely. That's the number one uh sort of psychological u torture where you have no idea what the future holds. Are you gonna be there for a day or are you going to be there for the rest of your life? And you know, we did that to a lot of people. Uh we we did that to a lot of people. The director of intelligence who was holding

[39:40] me um he would often come and u cuz I was I didn't just sit there. I didn't just sit and you know take their I I was a fighter. I I like got up and fought with all of them and I made their life really hard. So their chief comes down, the director of intelligence, Abdul Hakasik, and he comes to me and he's like, "Do you know how long I was in Guantamo?" He's like, "13 years."

[40:13] He was in Guantanamo for 13 years. He was released in exchange for Bober Bergd Doll. >> Oh my god. So he was one of the five released in exchange for Bo Bergd Doll. And he would come down to me and he would often be like, "Do you do you know what they did to me?" He's like, "They would release dogs on us. They would like let the dogs uh bite us." And he's like, "You are living you

[40:45] are living the life. This is nothing." And sometimes I would think about that. I I was and my argument was you guys were in in in a war with a country. Today you have signed an agreement with that country and as a citizen of that country you have no right to hold me. You held Bob Bergdoll for many years. Um you you

[41:15] you you uh held uh fer farer for for two three years. You held many many American soldiers for many years and that was justified. That was you were fighting with a country. They were holding you. You were holding their people. But today you've signed a peace deal and you have you can no longer hold me. Um they in order to calm me down, they would often send these people who had spent time in American prisons and they

[41:46] would talk to me and they would tell me about their time. Um and you kind of humanize them. It it it they become human to you. They become real. You know, when I was fighting in uh with with with Jak in Afghanistan, I didn't think Taliban were real. They they didn't feel real people. They didn't feel like they were um existing as humans. They were, you know, it was just we thought there

[42:18] were like maybe five, six thousand of them and there were five, six in every little village and they were just trying to fight with us. But when I went to Kbble and I saw their organized soldiers like full thousands of military fully trained and were able to stand like soldier stands I was taken so far back I was my mind couldn't comprehend

[42:49] that it was how did these people have organized thousands thousands of soldiers when we were claiming that we have pushed all of them out of Afghanistan. Where were their training centers? How these people were training? Who trained them specifically? Who trained them? who I saw these guys like wearing our helmets with night vision goggles and the weapons the the M4s that had uh

[43:23] sights on them, the night vision sights and the and they were using them as if they have been using them for many many years. And I I I in in that place I learned so much about the Taliban. Um, you know, I went on a hunger strike for for 9 days and that was an an interesting experience with them as well. The Taliban didn't want me to die. >> I'm sure >> they they wanted me to stay alive

[43:55] and be a a token for uh the the Taliban to uh you know negotiate with the Americans. And Taliban were very curious. They were they couldn't figure out who I was. But what was really interesting to them is everybody was asking about me. You know, the Biden administration was asking directly, it was coming down directly from the president and they were asking the Taliban about me and asking them to release me and they kept looking at who

[44:28] I was. They looked at everything. Um there were a lot of interesting things that actually happened and one of the most interesting thing is so they they first day when they were going through all my stuff one of the Taliban guy he pulls out my wallet and he's going through all my IDs and stupidly he pulls out one of the ID it's my Navy ID it's my military it's my uh CAC and he looks

[45:01] at it then he looks at me. He kind of smirks, puts it back, puts away my wallet, and I never see that again. >> What in the world? >> So, this guy doesn't take this military ID that has my picture, that has my name, that clearly says I am an, you know, um, unformed uh, uniformed forces. And he puts it away. I never see that again. He doesn't give it to his superiors. He doesn't give it to another

[45:31] Taliban guy. He doesn't tell a soul. He puts it back, closes my wallet, and puts it away in a drawer. And when I'm leaving, he gives the wallet back directly to me. And I leave. And I'm like, did this guy just help me? And why? And why? >> Why? >> Why did he help me? Was it just a human? Was it just being a human? and he just wanted that I don't get in more trouble or was

[46:02] there something more? >> So tell us a little bit about the conditions in which you were held. Were you treated with respect at least? >> So it was everybody was different. There were people who were very disrespectful who were who were calling me a traitor, who were calling me CIA agent, who were calling me uh all kinds of things. They thought I was a spy. I was working for the CIA. I was and then there were those

[46:33] that I became very I I started connecting with them. I started uh learning about them, about their families. U so the the senior guard who was for my prison um he was a older probably his his late 20s and I asked him I was are you married do you have children he's like I just got married but I don't have children I like why do you not have children he's like oh well I was a suicide bomber and um my turn never came >> so I wasn't I didn't want to marry

[47:04] because I was suic I was going to go conduct a suicide >> that's very thoughtful of him >> yeah but my turn never came and now that we uh I don't need to be a suicide bomber anymore. That's why I got married and now I'm going to have children. >> And it it was you learned about these people. You you would think that a suicide bomber would be some strange guy who's out of their mind who has like no sort of you know control of his own thoughts or body or his own uh actions.

[47:38] No, it's just a normal guy. a normal guy would like, you know, just believes in it. >> Yeah. Right. >> Um and yeah, so I was living in a basement for uh the entire time we were in a basement that was uh about 12 ft below ground. Uh and I didn't see the sun for about 70 days. And finally when the negotiation was going farther, they started taking us

[48:08] out into the sun because they were like, "We don't want you to look too pale when you guys get out of here so you don't look bad. You so so people don't think that we were like keeping you in a basement." Uh it was one of the facilities of the uh back in the days uh it was called NDS, which is the National Directorate of Security that CIA directly trained and equipped and worked with. It was that department. Now it's called the um uh now it's just called uh director of intelligence. Uh so that's

[48:39] where I was held in a basement. It's >> it's inside that uh that that green zone which also includes the presidential palace >> uh the CIA annex which was called Ariana or the CIA annex. um and also very close to the US embassy. Uh and it was in a basement um the entire time I was there. And you know, eventually we um bribed one of the guards who brought us a phone. We were able to use that phone to

[49:12] tell um our loved ones that we were still alive. Um yeah, and it was winter and you know, cobble winters are really cold. Uh initially we didn't have blankets or you know mattresses or any kind of uh heaters. Um so I I was wearing this jacket that was it was a red jacket. It was really warm and I never took that off for the 105 days

[49:43] and it never got washed. By the end of it, it looked great. >> Yeah. Like it could get up and walk away on its own too. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, that jacket was a lifesaver. >> Wow. Um, last question for you is is tell us about your release, how it was negotiated, how it was implemented, how did that happen? >> So, there were many different uh false agreements that happened and then it didn't go through. what Taliban wanted.

[50:15] They didn't want anything in my return except they were like, "We just want American diplomats to come to Afghanistan, shake hands with the Taliban, and we'll release him." That was it. And what they wanted to show is legitimacy. So that whole plan uh when the the special on the special presidential envoy was um uh going to come to Afghanistan to um for that and get me take me uh back. So they did the whole planning. They sell sent like a

[50:46] whole troop of Navy Seals to Pakistan with helicopters and everything so that if anything went wrong they could inter uh intervene and um carry out a rescue mission uh for the uh special envoy. Well, what happened 5 days before he was supposed to come to Afghanistan is Taliban basically announced that everywhere in the country, girls above grade fifth couldn't go to school. So, America was basically like, "Oh, we can't go now." So, they the the administration walked back. And then we

[51:18] had a 40minute long call with Wendy Sherman and uh Nita Loey uh uh Nita Loi Wendy Sherman several other senators from the US called the administration and basically compelled them to uh carry out the mission and not walk back. Well, what happened is the special envoy couldn't come at that time. It couldn't be uh it couldn't be a public visit. So, ironically, what happened is
