After Fleeing Taliban, Four Women Rebuild in the U.S.

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A dark night, a quiet house, but inside danger was lurking.

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Not really. We have Xfinity Shield, so we're not worried. What if protecting your home and devices could be drama-free?

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Xfinity.

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Imagine that.

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Mina Kim (0:40)

Welcome to Forum. I'm Mina Kim.

The September 11th attacks triggered a 20-year war in Afghanistan that ended five years ago with a chaotic withdrawal. And as the Taliban retook Afghanistan, the New York Times launched a massive effort to evacuate 124 Afghan journalists, translators, staff and immediate family members, including four young women who've become the subject of a new book by journalists, Rebecca Blumenstein and Diana Kapp. This hour, we look at what it's taken for the women to rebuild in America and how starkly different their life trajectories are from women in Afghanistan today. The book is called The Last Free Women. And joining me first is Rebecca Blumenstein, President of Editorial at NBC News and former Deputy Managing Editor at the New York Times. Rebecca, welcome.

Rebecca Blumenstein (1:30)

Thank you so much for having me.

Mina Kim (1:32)

Really glad to have you. Also with us, Mursal Rahim, one of the women profiled in The Last Free Women. Mursal, thank you for joining us as well.

Mursal Rahim (1:42)

Thank you so much for having me.

Mina Kim (1:45)

So Rebecca, I'll start with you. When the Taliban retook Kabul, what did that mean for New York Times journalists there? What kind of danger were they in?

Rebecca Blumenstein (1:56)

The Taliban retook Kabul so much faster than anybody imagined. It was just an event that began increasingly shocking the world. And we had every reason to believe that anybody who had worked for the New York Times or other US organizations or helped the US military was a great risk of direct reprisal from the Taliban. Some of our Afghan reporters had received direct threats.

And we began mobilizing to do what we could to get reporters out of the country and as many people as we could. We realized that the US was not going to be of much help. And the Taliban began taking province after province, getting closer and closer to Kabul. And we began a frantic round-the-clock effort to call governments around the world, countries, to see if we could, number one, get our people out of Kabul and, number two, a country that would accept them.

Mina Kim (2:54)

What were some of the things you had to do to engineer this international evacuation? Who did you speak to? What countries agreed?

Rebecca Blumenstein (3:01)

I mean, honestly, myself and senior leaders at the Times called anyone we knew any contact we had ever had.

I used to work in China, so I focused on Singapore. I thought the whole way that Qatar, because they were hosting the Taliban, might have some contacts. I reached out to Canada, to India, our Washington Bureau Chief, Tridus Bekistan. We got a break early on. Our Mexico Bureau Chief was able to convince Mexico's foreign minister to do an extraordinary thing and say that they would take our people in. Then we just needed to get them there. Amid the calls, I did know that Qatar might be a link, and I finally realized that I had a contact from my China reporting days, former journalist who had joined the Marines to fight in Afghanistan, and then had worked as Trump's deputy, President Trump's deputy, and a sea director in the first administration. I sent him a note late one night and said, is there any way you can help? I was startled and pleasantly surprised to wake up the next morning with an email back, I think I can help, I have a contact in Qatar, get your list ready.

Mina Kim (4:16)

Wow.

Mursal, take us inside your family's apartment on August 15th, 2021 Your brother who was a journalist worked for the Times, and calls and tells you you have 30 minutes to pack a small bag and leave. What do you remember about that moment?

Mursal Rahim (4:36)

Sure.

It was August 15th that we are having a lunch, and we are sitting in the floor usually, and we were having lunch, and we received a call from my brother that told us to pack your bag, and we have only 30 minutes to leave Afghanistan. He mentioned that you have to only take backpack with yourself, because it will be easy to carry, and we don't know where we are going. So we all rushed to our rooms to pack our document and some very important stuff. And I remember I put in my bag my document and an extra cloth and a few headscarf. And the part was we didn't know where we are going. So we left the home and we headed out to the airport.