WSJ Report: Translator Who Helped Rescue Biden in Afghanistan in 2008 Stranded

Credit: John Silson/U.S. Department of State.

An Afghan translator who helped rescue now-President Joe Biden in 2008 is stranded inside the country, reported The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, the day after the United States completed its withdrawal from the country after an almost-20-year war.

“Hello Mr. President: Save me and my family,” Mohammed, who requested that his full name not be publicized, told the publication. “Don’t forget me here.”

Mohammed, who, along with his family, has been in hiding from the Taliban, was “a 36-year-old interpreter for the U.S. Army in 2008 when two U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopters made an emergency landing in Afghanistan during a blinding snowstorm,” according to WSJ. Biden was then a Democratic U.S. senator from Delaware. Along with Biden, then-Sens. John Kerry (D-MA) and Chuck Hagel (R-NE) were on board.

The rest of the story went like this, according to WSJ:

As a private security team with the former firm Blackwater and U.S. Army soldiers monitored for any nearby Taliban fighters, the crew sent out an urgent call for help. At Bagram Air Field, Mohammed jumped in a Humvee with a Quick Reaction Force from the 82nd Airborne Division and drove hours into the nearby mountains to rescue them.

Mohammed spent much of his time in a tough valley where the soldiers said he was in more than 100 firefights with them.

…

Their Army helicopters’ emergency landing in a valley about 20 miles southeast of Bagram Air Field wasn’t in an area that was Taliban-controlled, but it wasn’t exactly friendly. The day before, the 82nd Airborne had killed nearly two dozen Taliban insurgents in a major fight about 10 miles 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 82nd Airborne Division Humvees and three Blackwater SUVs as they barreled through thick snow to find the helicopters. The senators were sped back to the U.S. base with the convoy, said Matthew Springmeyer, who was leading the Blackwater security in the helicopters that day.

The defense contractor that Mohammed worked for lost records he needed for his visa application, according to WSJ, which also reported that Mohammed went to the airport in the Afghan capital of Kabul, where U.S. forces said he, but not his family, could get through.

“I can’t leave my house,” Mohammed told WSJ on Tuesday. “I’m very scared.”