[ An evacuation operation launched in the last days of the war brought together a bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and other senior American politicians and military officials. But the chaotic effort failed to get the girls and scores of other students and faculty out of the country before the U.S. withdrawal was complete.]
On Aug. 14, the girls were
rehearsing for an upcoming concert in Colombia.
On Aug. 15, the Taliban seized
Kabul. And just like that, the girls’ hopes evaporated.
This is the story of what happened
to Afghanistan’s first and only music school and its renowned Zohra Orchestra
in the aftermath of the Taliban’s return to power. It was a traumatic
experience that for many of the girls and teens is still ongoing, and whose
denouement remains far from certain.
Today, their school — the Afghanistan National
Institute of Music — is a military base of the Haqqani network, a
hard-line group allied with the Taliban with strong links to al-Qaeda.
An evacuation operation launched in
the last days of the war brought together a bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers,
including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and
other senior American politicians and military officials. But the chaotic
effort failed to get the girls and scores of other students and faculty out of
the country before the U.S. withdrawal was complete.
At one point, the Taliban stopped
the girls’ buses 55 yards from a U.S. military-controlled gate into Kabul’s
international airport, their portal to freedom and a new life.
A second attempt on Oct. 3
succeeded in taking out roughly a third of the music school with the help of
famed cellist Yo-Yo Ma and others. Those who escaped included two Zohra
musicians interviewed by The Washington Post a week earlier.
But the rest didn’t have valid
passports and remain trapped in the capital. The girls spend their days inside
their houses gripped by fear, uncertain if they will ever return to school or
play music again.
[Afghans
bury paintings and hide books out of fear of Taliban crackdown on arts and
culture]
“I haven’t practiced my violin
since the day the Taliban came,” said an 18-year-old orchestra member left
behind, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of security concerns.
“The only life I want is one where I can freely play my violin.”
Her future hinges on the
willingness of the Taliban, which once dispatched a suicide bomber to one of
the school’s musical performances, to issue her new travel documents.
The violinist is among the tens of
thousands of vulnerable Afghans left to fend for themselves under the Taliban,
despite President Biden’s description of the U.S. evacuation of nearly 124,000
people as “an extraordinary success.”
Those who remain in Afghanistan include female judges, women’s
rights activists, former U.S. military translators, artists and countless
others whose work or beliefs are in the Taliban’s crosshairs. Many remain in
hiding.
The difference between the Zohra
Orchestra and other Afghans left behind is that the music school has a
constellation of educators, philanthropists, lobbyists and other influential
benefactors, mostly in the United States and Europe, working to get the
students out.
Even so, the exit strategy for the
remaining musicians has narrowed sharply.
Under threat in Kabul
Wajiha Kabuli was 8 years old when
she arrived at the coeducational music school from an orphanage that funneled
in talented girls. A year earlier, she said, the Taliban had killed her father,
and her mother was ill and too poor to support her.
“Music was the only way reach to my
goals, either financially or spiritually,” said Kabuli, now 17, a
percussionist.
In 2015, she joined the Zohra
Orchestra, which performed both traditional Afghan songs and classical music.
As they toured the world, the 30-member ensemble became an emblem of
Afghanistan’s growing freedoms and opportunities for girls and women.
[As
the Taliban bars some girls from school, their mothers’ dreams are also
shattered]
At home, though, threats emerged. In
December 2014, a suicide bomber targeted Kabul’s French Cultural Center, where
the school’s students were performing at a musical play. The attack killed a
German national and injured 15. The music school’s director, Ahmad Nasir
Sarmast, was nearly killed.
The Taliban claimed responsibility
describing the musical as an insult to Islam.
“My school was promoting gender
equality, musical education, musical diversity, women’s rights, girl’s rights,”
Sarmast said. “Everything that our school was doing was against the Taliban’s
vision and ideology.”
On Aug. 15 of this year, Shogofa
Safi, 17, was playing the marimba in an orchestra rehearsal when two teachers
entered. The Taliban were on the way, they said.
“We fled the school,” recalled
Safi, who is also the orchestra’s conductor.
That was the last time she and the
other girls saw their instruments.
Within days, the school’s
supporters scrambled to get the roughly 280 students and faculty out of the
country. Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Pelosi reached out to senior
officials in the Biden administration, the State Department and the Pentagon,
people familiar with the operation said.
Drew Hammill, a spokesman for
Pelosi, confirmed her involvement. A spokesperson for Schumer acknowledged the
senator had tried to help “the brave and talented young musicians” to leave the
country.
Scott Taylor, a former Republican
congressman from Virginia and an ex-Navy Seal, contacted Cheney and other
Republican lawmakers. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) also got involved.
A State Department spokesperson
declined to discuss the evacuation “for privacy and other considerations.” The
State Department spokesperson and the spokesperson for Schumer spoke on the
condition of anonymity to discuss the matter. The Pentagon did not respond to
requests for comment.
Portugal’s government agreed to
take in the musicians, and the group’s backers made arrangements for them to be
evacuated on a British military flight, Taylor said.
On Aug. 27, Kabuli, Safi and the
18-year-old violinist received messages to pack a bag with three changes of
clothes.
A failed evacuation
The next afternoon, seven buses
carrying around 280 students and faculty from the school arrived at the airport
gate. They were marked with an “X” and Christmas signs to be identifiable by
U.S. soldiers, said people involved in the operation. But between the American
troops and the buses stood a Taliban checkpoint. Thousands of Afghans and
foreigners, including U.S. citizens were also trying to flee the country.
“We were in a bus full of girls,
and the Taliban were outside,” recalled the 18-year-old violinist. “And we
couldn’t get near to the Americans.”
Outside Afghanistan, several groups
of the school’s backers were following the drama through Zoom and WhatsApp,
connected with bus drivers, faculty and U.S. troops on the ground.
After waiting for several hours at
one gate, the convoy drove to another gate, where Taliban fighters again
blocked their entry.
By then, Cheney had sought the help
of Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to help the
convoy get inside the airport, an aide to Cheney said, adding that Milley was
“responsive and helpful.” Cassidy’s office also reached out to Milley and U.S.
Central Command, an aide to the senator said. Both aides spoke on the condition
of anonymity to discuss the sensitive efforts.
But there was still no approval
from the Taliban. U.S. soldiers were dealing with dozens of similar groups
seeking to enter the airport.
The buses returned to the first
gate, where the girls remained overnight. In the early morning of Aug. 29, the
buses were half a football field away from the gate where U.S. soldiers were
positioned.
Taylor sent urgent emails to a
White House official and lawmakers, and he messaged a U.S. captain with the
digital location of the buses. Eventually, a U.S. soldier with a printout of
the passenger manifest drove to the Taliban checkpoint to get the final
authorization. But the militants’ commander was asleep, Taylor said.
By then, U.S. military officials
grew concerned that the Islamic State might attack the airport. Three days
earlier, the terrorist group dispatched a suicide bomber there, killing 13 U.S.
servicemembers and 170 Afghans. Around 4 a.m., the U.S. military shut the
airport’s gates.
The buses headed back into the
city.
The following day, the violinist
bought a hijab, the religious veil that covers the head, approved by the
militants. “I have never worn one before in my life,” she said.
‘Music is not in our religion’
Scrawled in white paint on the
metal front gate of the country’s National Institute of Music today: The
Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. Above it is a picture of Jalaluddin Haqqani, the late founder of the eponymous
network, which a United Nations report in June described as the “primary
liaison between the Taliban and Al-Qaida.”
Recently, armed Taliban fighters
sat on the grass, sipping tea near trees etched with musical notes. Their
pickup trucks, topped with the movement’s white flag, were parked nearby. In
the pink-colored buildings, fighters rested inside classrooms.
Their commander showed two Post
journalists rooms containing musical instruments, all seemingly untouched. But
Sarmast said the militants broke instruments on another campus of the school.
[As
an Afghan newspaper struggles to survive, a brutal beating — and a Taliban
apology]
Maulavi Ahmedi Karwan, the
commander, denied those reports. He said the Taliban leadership had no official
policy yet about music. But Karwan didn’t hide his contempt for the school.
“Music is not in our religion,” he
said. “Since the Islamic Emirate has taken over here, music has no longer a place
here.”
Around the capital, Taliban
fighters have entered wedding halls, demanding live music be halted. They have
confiscated or broken instruments, declaring them “haram,” or forbidden by
Islamic law, according to three wedding hall managers and several musicians.
Against this backdrop and after
their ordeal at the airport, members of the Zohra orchestra hunkered down in
their homes. They worried neighbors would alert the Taliban or they would be
recognized if they stepped outside.
“I fear even imagining the Taliban
will find me one day,” said Kabuli in an interview in late September, noting
that the militants had killed a folk singer in August.
To keep her skills fresh, Safi was
taking an online conducting class with a teacher based in England. She played
an imaginary marimba by tapping her fingers on a table to music played on her
tablet. Every day she looked at photos of herself playing in the orchestra
before the Taliban arrived.
“They make me cry,” Safi said in an
interview in late September.
Kabuli played air-xylophone for an
hour and a half a day to music kept low as not to draw the attention of her
Taliban-sympathizing neighbors, she said. At the time, she was also taking care
of her mother, whose illness had worsened.
“When the Taliban sent the bus
back, I lost my dreams,” Kabuli said. “My body is alive but my soul is dead.”
Her 18-year-old orchestra comrade
felt the same way. She came to the school nine years ago from a small village
in Faryab province, she said. Now, she watches herself play on YouTube to
channel the musician she wants to become again.
All three girls shared the same
dream: to one day attend the Juilliard School, the performing arts conservatory
in New York.
A rescue, but only for some
On Oct. 2, Safi and Kabuli received
word of a second opportunity to leave Afghanistan. They were informed by their
teachers to pack small bags and be ready.
Their families had decided that
their futures were worth the sacrifice of separation. “I am happy my daughter
is out of the country and out of danger,” Kabuli’s mother said later.
In the days after the failed
operation, Sen. Cassidy, Yo-Yo Ma, Taylor and others successfully lobbied the
Qatar government to help evacuate the students, said the aide to Cassidy and
people involved in the effort.
After tearful goodbyes, the girls
traveled the next day to the airport in buses with 100 students and faculty,
including roughly half of the Zohra Orchestra. This time, officials from the
Qatari embassy were in the vehicles, and there were no chaotic scenes at the
airport.
At one point, the militants
questioned the validity of some of the girls’ travel documents. But the
Qataris, who have close ties to the Taliban, convinced them to let the group
leave, said Sarmast, who was involved in orchestrating the evacuation from
Australia.
The Qatari government did not
respond to a request for comment.
Also aboard the Qatar Airways plane
were also graduates of the school who had played at the Carnegie Hall and
Kennedy Center and master musicians with deep knowledge of traditional Afghan
music.
“We should rescue this knowledge
for the future which is significantly important for the preservation of the
musical heritage of Afghanistan and passing it to the new generations,” Sarmast
said.
Now in Doha, Qatar, the group is
waiting to leave for Portugal, which has granted members visas and facilities
to restart their musical studies and lives.
About 180 of the school’s students,
faculty, staff and family members remain in Kabul, including the rest of the
orchestra.
“I am sad that I haven’t left, but
that’s okay because my friends are now safe,” the violinist said on Thursday.
She has no other choice but to wait
for help. “I can’t go back to my village,” she added. “Our neighbors are
Taliban. Everyone there knows I am a musician.”
Taliban officials last week
announced they would issue 25,000 passports, but with hundreds of thousands of
Afghans seeking to leave, Sarmast said he has little hope his remaining
students will receive theirs quickly. He said he is looking for other options
to evacuate them from the country.
For Safi and Kabuli, their escape
is bittersweet.
“I feel good, but I also feel sad,”
said Safi in a telephone interview from Doha. “It’s tragic to leave our own
country.”
Kabuli, also by phone, said, now “I
can chase and continue my dreams.” But she thinks constantly of those left
behind. “I hope they will soon join us,” she said. “Wherever we are, we will be
Zohra, and we will again stand as one community.”
Read more
Taliban takeover of Afghanistan:
What you need to know
Surprise, panic and fateful
choices: The
day America lost its longest war
FAQ: What
you need to know about the Taliban
The 13 U.S. service members killed: What we know about the military victims of the Kabul airport
blast
More stories
Taliban co-founder reemerges to challenge reports of internal
strife among militants
ISIS-K, the group behind the Kabul airport attack, sees both
Taliban and the U.S. as enemies
Here’s how the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan could affect
al-Qaeda and the Islamic State
The story of an Afghan man who fell from the sky
The treacherous journey into Kabul airport to escape
Taliban-controlled Afghanistan
