Having worked tirelessly for nearly six months to provide care and support for tens of thousands of Afghan allies and activists who were left behind after the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, a group of 16 nonprofit evacuation organizations is now combining forces as the Moral Compass Federation.
Together, they are advocating for the evacuation of 33,351 high-risk Afghans and 120 American citizens and lawful permanent residents who remain stuck in Afghanistan. Daniel Elkins, CEO of the Special Operations Association of America, told the Washington Examiner that the Moral Compass Federation is particularly focused on providing a legal pathway to the United States for Afghan commandos and other elite forces who were vetted by the U.S. and served shoulder to shoulder with U.S. forces.
“We have a moral obligation to assist these members,” Elkins explained regarding the Afghan National Army Special Operations Command. “Without their efforts, more Americans would be buried at Arlington National Cemetery.”
Because of their support of the U.S. and Afghan governments, these Afghan allies are being actively targeted by the Taliban. Echoing similar findings by Human Rights Watch, a recent United Nations report found “credible allegations” of more than 100 Taliban reprisal killings of former Afghan government employees and Afghan security forces. Elkins said he believes these activities are “probably more systematic and widespread than the U.N. report highlights.”
In the earliest post-withdrawal months, “Duke,” a former recon platoon sergeant and volunteer with Moral Compass Federation-affiliated Operation North Star, received extensive video and photographic documentation of Taliban atrocities. Duke told the Washington Examiner that new Taliban guidance orders reprisals be conducted in secret to avoid harming Taliban leaders’ efforts to court the international community. As a result, Duke now receives little visual evidence of extrajudicial killings, though he hears that they continue to occur.
A representative from Operation Recovery, another member of Moral Compass Federation, told the Washington Examiner that he heard that eight Afghans who sought refuge in Pakistan were handed to the Taliban by Pakistani authorities and were not heard from again. The same fate met several commandos on Operation Recovery’s manifest who have disappeared after walking into local passport offices and being “black-bagged [and] taken to a van.”
Brothers Anwar and Dostum, whose names have been changed to protect their families, spent 10 years working with the U.S. Special Operations Command as combat interpreters and had achieved Chief of Mission approvals on their Special Immigrant Visas. In January, as Taliban leaders participated in talks with Western officials in Oslo, local Taliban discovered and arrested the brothers on a routine search of Afghan homes. Last week, Dostum told Ben Owen, the president of Moral Compass Federation-affiliated Flanders Fields, that the Taliban had killed Anwar. Anwar’s body was never returned to his family. Dostum has stopped communicating with his U.S. contacts while taking his and Anwar’s families to safety.
Supporting such people requires an extensive facilitation network and significant monetary outlays. As Afghans’ desperation rises and the Taliban’s methodical searches for U.S. allies and former Afghan government officials continue, safe houses are being discovered and rendered unusable. A representative from Operation Recovery said that in the course of one particularly difficult week, the organization lost access to 13 safe houses and a food cache that could have fed 100 Afghans for seven days. Setting Afghans up in new safe houses with basic living essentials, coupled with the increasing costs of food, heating supplies, and cooking materials is expensive.
Elkins hopes to see Moral Compass Federation create partnerships that leverage evacuation groups’ well-tested facilitation networks and alleviate some of the financial burden often carried by evacuation groups’ veteran volunteers.
Elkins says Moral Compass Federation will continue working alongside the Biden administration, the State Department, and the Defense Department “to bring [our allies] back to the U.S.”
Beth Bailey (@BWBailey85) is a freelance writer from the Detroit area.
