The Taliban have been targeting thousands of Afghan National Army soldiers and police officers, accusing them of being American spies.
iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/nx-s1-5099028/nx-s1-83acabcd-62bb-4773-b53f-9bd1a6f8c8b8" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">The Taliban are still hunting down former Afghan soldiers and police officers, three years after the chaotic American withdrawal. Many of the men, who were trained by U.S. and NATO forces, simply disappear from homes and villages.
Mohammad is one of many former members of law enforcement who’ve been targeted by the Taliban, he and other former law enforcement tell NPR. There were more than 270,000 Afghan soldiers and police officers — trained by American and NATO forces – when the Taliban took over in 2021, accordingHayatullah served as an Afghan National Army soldier for over a decade. When the Taliban approached his military base in 2021, he pleaded with his commanders to take action.
But Hayatullah says it wasn’t just weapons and expensive military equipment the Afghan National Army soldiers left behind. They also left thousands of pages of documents, filled with information. No one destroyed them. “Right now the Taliban use intelligence, those secrets, to target the ANA soldiers and officers,” he says.
“The truth is that we've welcomed 165,000 Afghans into our communities since August 2021,” says Shawn VanDiver, president and founder of, which helps Afghan wartime allies in the relocation process. “That's because this broad cross-section of America came together and has been pushing and pulling the government to do the right thing,” he adds.
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