It was mission impossible, he wrote. Or, perhaps more accurately, mission suicide.
In a matter of days, his country had fallen to the Taliban, a reality Khial Shinwari never expected. He saw the horror of the evacuation from Afghanistan’s military base. The Afghan air force colonel had gone to bed one morning after a night mission only to be awakened a few hours later to find people around him running, leaders with stoic faces.
Kabul had fallen.
“It was like the end of the world. Aircraft were flying from the taxiways, [the] opposite direction from the runway,” Shinwari said. “It was the end of the world.”
The 35-year-old Afghan military leader was miles from his wife and two young children. Leaving the military base to get them was too risky. Taliban fighters were targeting air force workers, Shinwari said. Kill the pilots, control the sky.