Interpreter who helped rescue Biden left behind after US exit

Interpreter Mohammed helped rescue Joe Biden in 2008 after his helicopter was forced to land in a snowstorm. Now, Mohammed is making a White House appeal: ‘Don’t forget me here.’

Chuck Hagel, Joe Biden and John Kerry in Afghanistan on February 20, 2008. Mohammed isn’t in the picture. Picture: US State Department

Thirteen years ago, Afghan ­interpreter Mohammed helped rescue then senator Joe Biden and two other senators stranded in a remote Afghanistan valley after their helicopter was forced to land in a snowstorm. Now, Mohammed is asking the President to save him.

“Hello Mr President: Save me and my family,” Mohammed, who asked not to use his full name while in hiding, told The Wall Street Journal as the last Americans flew out of Kabul on Monday. “Don’t forget me here.”

Mohammed, his wife, and their four children are hiding from the Taliban after his years-long ­attempt to get out of Afghanistan got tangled in the bureaucracy. They are among countless Afghan allies who were left behind when the US ended its 20-year military campaign on Monday.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki thanked the interpreter for his service on Tuesday (Wednesday AEST) and said the US ­remained committed to getting Afghan allies out of the country. “We will get you out,” Ms Psaki said after a Wall Street Journal ­reporter read his message to the President. “We will honour your service.”

Mohammed was a 36-year-old interpreter for the US Army in 2008 when two Black Hawk helicopters made an emergency landing in Afghanistan during a blinding snowstorm, according to army veterans who worked with him at the time. On board were three US senators: Mr Biden, fellow Democrat John Kerry and the Republican Chuck Hagel.

As a private security team with the firm Blackwater and US Army soldiers monitored for any nearby Taliban fighters, the crew sent out an urgent call for help.

At Bagram airfield, Mohammed jumped in a Humvee with a quick reaction force from the Arizona National Guard working with the 82nd Airborne Division and drove hours into the nearby mountains to rescue them, said Brian Genthe, then a staff sergeant who brought Mohammed along on the rescue mission.

Mohammed spent much of his time in a tough valley where the soldiers said he was in more than 100 firefights with them. The soldiers trusted him so much that they would sometimes give him a weapon to use if they got in trouble when they went into tough areas, Mr Genthe said.

“His selfless service to our military men and women is just the kind of service I wish more Americans displayed,” Lieutenant ­Colonel Andrew R. Till wrote in June to support Mohammed’s ­application for a visa.

Mohammed’s visa application became stuck after the defence contractor he worked for lost the records he needed for his application, Mr Genthe said. Then the Taliban seized Kabul on August 15. Like thousands of others, Mohammed said he tried his luck by going to the Kabul airport gates, where he was rebuffed by US forces. Mohammed could get in, they told him, but not his wife or their children.

Army veterans called politicians and issued dire appeals to US officials for help. “If you can only help one Afghan, choose [Mohammed],” wrote Shawn O’Brien, an army combat veteran who worked with him in Afghanistan in 2008. “He earned it.”

During the 2008 campaign, Mr Biden, who was then running for vice-president, often spoke of the helicopter incident and the trip as a way of burnishing his foreign-policy credentials. “If you want to know where al al-Qa’ida lives, you want to know where (Osama) bin Laden is, come back to Afghanistan with me,” he said on the campaign trail in October, just months after the February rescue. “Come back to the area where my helicopter was forced down … in the middle of those mountains. I can tell you where they are.”

The trip to Afghanistan was one of the many overseas trips the three senators took together.

Their army helicopter’s emergency landing in a valley about 30km southeast of Bagram wasn’t in an area that was Taliban-controlled, but it wasn’t friendly. The day before, the 82nd Airborne had killed nearly two dozen Taliban insurgents in a major fight about 16km away, said soldiers who fought there at the time.

While trying to stay warm in the helicopter, the three men joked about throwing snowballs at the Taliban, the senators said later. “We were going to send Biden out to fight the Taliban with snowballs, but we didn’t have to do it,” Mr Kerry said after they were rescued.

Instead, Mohammed joined the US Army Humvees and three Blackwater SUVs as they barrelled through thick snow to find the helicopters. The senators were sped back to the US base with the convoy, said Matthew Springmeyer, who was leading the Blackwater security in the helicopters that day.

Mohammed stood guard with Afghan soldiers on one side of the helicopters while members of the 82nd Airborne protected the other side, said Mr Genthe. When curious locals came too close, Mohammed would use a bullhorn to tell them to go away. They stayed out there for 30 hours in the freezing temperatures until the US military could get the helicopters back in the air and the soldiers back to ­Bagram.

Now, Mohammed is in hiding. “I can’t leave my house,” he said on Tuesday. “I’m very scared.”

The Wall Street Journal