Thread by @IAmAmnaNawaz

N is hiding in Kabul with his wife, daughter, and 2 other families. I'm protecting his identity for their safety. He's spent years in education work, including projects with the US govt and US institutions. His org was targeted by the Taliban recently. Here's what he told me...

When the Taliban entered Kabul, "it came like a storm. it happened all of a sudden. No officials gave us any time to prepare, or take care of our staff or students."

Because they all lived in housing associated w/ the education org, "we thought it was wise to evacuate and move"

"The Taliban announced a curfew at 9pm. We started moving to this other location yesterday evening....There were some gun firings here and there. They took over the police station. We left most of what we had behind. We left quietly. We didn't want the neighbors to know either."

"The whole city is flooded with Taliban...Last night, we could see them from our windows. This is a small community, residential. They were searching cars last night, around 11pm they started appearing with guns - really heavy guns."

N has sent me video of this scene. I'm not sharing it here as it has some voices of those hiding inside their location, and also features identifying cars that could be used to triangulate their location.

N says the Talibs "all had smartphones." He says they started looking at each car, taking pictures of license plates, identifying cars. They were saying some belonged to government or police officials. He says they broke windows, went thru belongings, then left after a few hours.

N says a 2nd Taliban team then arrived, and went directly to those cars. "I could see they knew how to break into a car really easily, and they could [short-circuit] really quickly - opening and turning on cars was a piece of cake. But they don't really know how to drive."

I asked N if they have enough food and water. 3 families + 7 more ppl are all hunkered down in this one location together. N says they have supplies for now. They try to stay as quiet as possible. I asked N if they can move around Kabul.
"I don't know. The Talibs are everywhere"

N says the Taliban are driving around constantly. "All of them in big cars - police cars, humvees, with very heavy machine guns. All day - driving. They don't really drive well in the city. There have been a lot of accidents. But people in Kabul are not used to so many guns."

N says they've set up checkpoints. They're checking cars. Stopping people, searching cars, looking at phones, laptops, seizing guns.
N says a colleague tried to get to the airport. He was stopped at gunpoint by Talibs who saw his laptop. They went through it before releasing him

N says another colleague told him he was stopped by Taliban on the street. They took his phone, checked his messages, facebook profile, emails, contacts, pictures. Only once they'd gone through everything did they let him go.

N sent me this photo of one of the Taliban groups he saw today. They are "everywhere" he says.

I asked N what the last 24 hrs have been like for him. 2 days ago, life was normal. Now this.

He says he's not processing yet. "It's like when someone's shot and the wound is warm, you dont feel pain until you regain consciousness"

"We're not in a situation to honestly think. I watched the videos of people falling from the plane. There's just no words."
He paused for a long time before continuing.
"It's humiliating. It's sad. It's everything."

N is among the thousands of Afghans who returned to Afghanistan after the US invasion because they wanted to help rebuild a country they fled as children. N's daughter is now 8. He says she's very smart.
"She asked me why we're leaving. Why we're here. I don't have an answer.'

'I've told her we are trying to be safe together and we will figure things out."

He tells me about a game she plays, making characters on her ipad. She created her whole family there -- dressing them, naming them. Today, he saw her character was holding something in the picture.

He asked her what she was holding in the drawing.
"It's a gun," she replied. "I'm going to kill the Talibs."

This is a girl who doesn't like cars or the color gray because they're 'boy toys' and 'boy colors,' N says. She's never drawn a weapon before in her life.

"When I look at her face, and I see what's going through her mind. It's very stressful. It's very sad. I don't know what to tell her."

I ask N where they're getting information. He says there's just replays on the news. Some online broadcasts, he doesn't know where from.

N says they're relying on international news to figure out what's going on. CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera.

He worries about what he hears Taliban leadership saying in Doha and in public, and what he's seeing on the ground in Kabul.

"Their [the Taliban's] promises are hopeful. What they're saying in Doha makes a lot of sense. But what's happening in the city is quite different from what we're hearing. That's what makes me worried."

"The situation is not normal. Someone hanging from a plane and falling on to rooftops - they would not do that if the situation was normal...Here they say we have won the war, everything is settled, there is no need for an interim government."

N talks about his students a lot. About his staff. About everything they'd built over the last 20 years. About how worried he is it'll all be lost.

He promised to stay in touch.
I'll update here as he shares more.
#