Afghan Interpreters Who Await Visas After Helping The U.S. Now Fear For Their Lives

https://www.npr.org/2021/06/19/ [login to see] /afghan-interpreters-who-await-visas-after-helping-the-u-s-now-fear-for-their-liv
On a warm May night, the sound of footsteps and a stranger's voice in the darkness outside his home startled a man in Afghanistan. Alarmed, he went to investigate. He saw that someone had affixed something to his door.

He found a handwritten note: "You have been helping U.S. occupier forces and ... you are an ally and spy of infidels, we will never leave you alive."

Khan, in his early 30s, is only using his middle name out of fear for his life. He had already received a series of death threats — which came, he says, in the form of phone calls to his father from the Taliban. That night in May, insurgents made it clear they knew where he lived.

Khan inspected his home's main gate and found a grenade wired to the doorknob, set to explode if someone opened the gate from inside. He and his father managed to dispose of the device before it could be triggered.

"Fortunately, no one was harmed," Khan tells NPR. He has a three-year-old son, and his wife is pregnant.