{"id":76169,"date":"2023-08-06T16:49:32","date_gmt":"2023-08-06T16:49:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/airforcetimes\/uncategorized\/2023\/08\/06\/questions-surround-us-raid-in-afghanistan-in-2019\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T15:47:43","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T15:47:43","slug":"questions-surround-us-raid-in-afghanistan-in-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/airforcetimes\/flashpoints\/2023\/08\/06\/questions-surround-us-raid-in-afghanistan-in-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"Questions surround US raid in Afghanistan in 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Afghan villager was afraid the American soldiers might come. And one cool night in fall, as his children lay asleep, helicopters roared overhead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At the first sound of gunshots, he yelled for his wife and 10 children to take cover. His young daughter grabbed her sleeping infant sister off the bed. Their mud compound exploded, and a blast sent a huge shock through the home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cMy small sister fell away from my arms,\u201d the girl, now a teenager, whispered, so quietly she could barely be heard above the breeze. \u201cThe wind blew her out of my hands.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Today, what exactly happened that night is at the center of a bitter international custody dispute over an orphaned baby found amid the rubble. The high-profile legal battle pits an Afghan family against an American one, and has <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/afghanistan-politics-united-states-government-virginia-children-97a4e2f4c38925d50e5511a3232974f0\" target=\"_blank\">drawn responses from the White House<\/a> and the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.documentcloud.org\/documents\/23886733-doc-197-3-taliban-statement\" target=\"_blank\">Taliban.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\t<aside class=\"smg-interstitial-link wp-block-smg-interstitial-link\">\n\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/marinecorpstimes\/news\/your-marine-corps\/2023\/04\/02\/marines-adoption-of-afghan-war-orphan-voided\/\" class=\"smg-interstitial-link__inner\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"smg-interstitial-link__media\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" src=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AP23090601519285.jpg.jpg?w=300\" class=\"smg-interstitial-link__image wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" \/>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"smg-interstitial-link__content\">\n\t\t\t\t<span class=\"smg-interstitial-link__kicker\">Related<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"smg-interstitial-link__title\">Marine\u2019s adoption of Afghan war orphan voided<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p class=\"smg-interstitial-link__excerpt\">A state court judge has voided a U.S. Marine\u2019s adoption of an Afghan war orphan, but her future remains uncertain.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/aside>\n\t\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Afghan government and the International Committee of the Red Cross determined that the baby belonged to this Afghan villager. Friends and family say he was a farmer, not a militant. The Red Cross found surviving relatives, and united her with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">However, a U.S. Marine attorney, Maj. Joshua Mast, believed he should get the girl instead. He insists that the child is the stateless orphan of foreign fighters who were living in an al-Qaida compound, and convinced a rural Virginia judge to grant him an adoption from 7,000 miles away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Were it not for this little girl, now 4 years old, the events that began on the night of September 5, 2019, in this remote, impoverished region might have remained locked away among clandestine stories of the thousands of raids the American and Afghan militaries carried out during the long war. But once-secret documents, now filed in court records, reveal details that thrust this raid into an ongoing controversy over who the military killed when they blew down walls in the middle of the night in Afghanistan, if those people were fighters or civilians, and whether the military ever tried to find out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Mast family has submitted a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.documentcloud.org\/documents\/23815515-declassified-mission-summary-1\" target=\"_blank\">summary<\/a> of the raid in a federal court case, an account Joshua Mast helped create after he said he \u201cpersonally read every page of the 150+ classified documents\u201d on the operation. The summary describes how as many as six enemy fighters were killed and possibly one civilian. The only child the document mentions is the injured baby.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But survivors and villagers who pulled bodies from the rubble told The Associated Press that more than 20 people were killed that night. Among them were this local farmer, his wife and five of their children, ages 4 to 15. The villagers said that after the raid, they also found four more of the farmer\u2019s children \u2014 three girls and a boy \u2014 covered in dirt, crying amid flames and ruins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Attorneys for the federal government said the summary the Mast family submitted in court was written on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.documentcloud.org\/documents\/23894853-doc-214-main-3\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cpurported\u201d military letterhead<\/a> and \u201cdoes not appear to have been created or endorsed by the Department of Defense.\u201d Nonetheless, they asked the court to seal it because they claim it contains government information the public should not see.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe \u2018mission summary\u2019 document was created by Major Mast in 2019 for use in his efforts to adopt the Afghan child, using his access to United States government information that he obtained through his Department of Defense employment, but does not necessarily reflect accurate or complete information,\u201d a Defense Department official told the AP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The military refuses to talk about its own account of the raid, and asked the AP to instead use a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.documentcloud.org\/documents\/23887877-decontrolled-mission-summary-2-may-2023_f\" target=\"_blank\">redacted version<\/a> that blacks out certain details, including any reference to civilian deaths. Several soldiers involved in the raid, who have testified in locked-door state court hearings about what happened there, declined to comment, and what they said on the witness stand remains sealed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The total cost of the war in civilian lives is impossible to pin down. The Defense Department estimates 48,000 Afghan civilians were killed and at least 75,000 injured between 2001 and 2021, though the agency acknowledges the true toll is likely significantly higher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Night raids have long been a particularly controversial tactic, said Patricia Gossman, associate Asia director at Human Rights Watch. Military investigations into who was killed in night raids were rare, and even more rarely made public. Gossman said a representative of the U.S. military told her American soldiers hardly ever returned to the scene of a raid to see if civilians were killed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThey said to us, \u2018We can\u2019t, we can\u2019t go back there because we\u2019d be a target,\u2019\u201d Gossman recalled. \u201cBut then how do you ever know?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The AP spoke with 12 villagers who described what happened on the night of Sept. 5, 2019, including four who said they were the orphan\u2019s siblings and uncles. The AP has agreed not to name the village or the family out of fear of tribal conflict and retaliation from the Taliban, who now rule the country. But neighbors said they never saw anyone return to account for the dead and injured, including the children, or to verify if they were militants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The farmer\u2019s brother-in-law wept as he walked around the site of the raid, pointing out where he had found his surviving nephews and nieces and the mutilated corpses of his loved ones. He showed the AP where they lived, where they made fires, where they sat, where they ate. The farmer was around 55 or 60, grew mung beans, corn and wheat, and was poor but generous enough to share any money he had, the brother-in-law said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cNow that I come here and look at these places, they do not leave my eyes,\u201d he said. \u201cMy heart is very sad.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The foreigners next door<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Here in this rugged desert, families live among the ruins of a 20-year war \u2014 rusted tanks, bombed-out houses, bullet-riddled buildings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"5500\" height=\"3667\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AP23215632182504.jpg.jpg\" alt=\"The remains of a home destroyed by U.S. forces during a Sept. 5, 2019, night raid is seen in a village in a remote region of Afghanistan, on Saturday, Feb. 25, 2023.\" class=\"wp-image-108822\" srcset=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AP23215632182504.jpg.jpg 5500w, https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AP23215632182504.jpg.jpg?resize=300,200 300w, https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AP23215632182504.jpg.jpg?resize=768,512 768w, https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AP23215632182504.jpg.jpg?resize=1024,683 1024w, https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AP23215632182504.jpg.jpg?resize=1536,1024 1536w, https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AP23215632182504.jpg.jpg?resize=2048,1365 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 5500px) 100vw, 5500px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">The remains of a home destroyed by U.S. forces during a Sept. 5, 2019, night raid is seen in a village in a remote region of Afghanistan, on Saturday, Feb. 25, 2023. (Ebrahim Noroozi\/AP)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Dust kicks up from the wheels of motorcycles on dirt paths, where squat mud homes blend into mountains that stretch for miles in every direction. It is a hard life: There are no paved roads, no running water or electricity, no bathrooms or cell service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">While locals said their tiny village was not targeted by the American military before September 2019, they feared the air strikes, night raids and fierce fighting decimating communities around them. Many raids happened in places like this \u2014 hard-to-reach outposts, far from city-based media outlets and human rights organizations that might look into civilian deaths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">About 200 people scratch out a living raising animals and farming on the green fertile patch of land alongside the river. The farmer and his family tended to their goats and sheep in the courtyard of their home, villagers said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The home was a windowless one-story compound of mud and straw. Like many in this conservative region, women stayed within the walls for most of their lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Years and ages can be difficult to calculate in Afghanistan, which uses different calendars than much of the world, but neighbors said the farmer and his family had lived there for a long time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Neighbor Abdul Khaliq said he had known the farmer for more than 20 years, and described him as kind and amiable. \u201cHe was a very good person,\u201d Khaliq said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The farmer\u2019s wife was younger, around 40, and they\u2019d been married for about 25 years. She was the daughter of an imam at a local mosque, and remained close to her family. She had a sense of humor \u2014 her brother said she would laugh as she teased him for not visiting often enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There is no way the AP could independently verify who the baby\u2019s parents were. Identification documents such as birth certificates aren\u2019t issued in this remote region \u2014 especially for women and girls \u2014 and few have cell phones or cameras. The AP has located no records of the birth of the farmer\u2019s baby or photographs of her with the family before the raid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Afghan government claimed the child, and the U.S. government agreed that the girl, who is referred to in court records as \u201cBaby Doe,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.documentcloud.org\/documents\/23894860-doc-131-government-answer\" target=\"_blank\">belonged to an Afghan family:<\/a> \u201cBaby Doe is a citizen of Afghanistan with biological family in Afghanistan,\u201d attorneys for the federal government wrote in court filings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But the Masts strongly disagree. Several foreign families arrived in the village around 2017 and settled into a home next to the Afghan farmer and his family, neighbors said. These men, women and children shared a wall, but kept to themselves and spoke an unfamiliar language, villagers told the AP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The light-skinned, bearded foreigners were a source of gossip. Some neighbors speculated they were from another, faraway Afghan province, or Turkey, or \u201cthe West.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Local mechanic Abdul Rahim, 25, said the foreigners often brought their cars, trucks and motorcycles to be fixed at his shop. No matter where they came from, one thing was clear to Rahim: They liked their weapons. They\u2019d clean their guns while he fixed their cars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI tried very hard to talk to them, but I couldn\u2019t understand the language,\u201d Rahim said. \u201cThere was never a fight or quarrel with them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In Afghanistan, hospitality is of foremost importance, and nobody confronted the visiting foreigners. The locals said they were friendly, but cautious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The farmer told his brother-in-law he was considering moving his family to another relative\u2019s house nearby. He was frightened that the military might come for the foreigners so close to his home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">\u201cThere were red fires\u201d<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The day of the raid unfolded like any other; the family fed corn and grass to the animals in the morning and cooked potatoes for lunch. They had no idea that U.S. and Afghan forces were loading up in helicopters to head toward their village.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The soldiers were targeting three men in two compounds believed to be al-Qaida-affiliated fighters from neighboring Turkmenistan, according to the summary the Masts submitted in court. As soldiers approached, they called out, offering the people inside a chance to surrender, according to the summary. One man was detained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Rahim, the local mechanic, said he had just fallen asleep under a tree outside a friend\u2019s home when he heard someone shouting in Pashto, \u201cstop, don\u2019t run.\u201d Awakening beside him, Mohammad Zaman remembers door-to-door knocks with orders \u201cnot to move\u201d and \u201cnot to run.\u201d The friends lay still, even as wind from a helicopter shook the branches and leaves above them, Zaman said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Then gunfire erupted. A barricaded shooter opened fire on the attacking troops, according to the summary. He was killed, but there were multiple shooters firing: a barrage of gunshots and grenades continued to pour out of the building. Attorneys representing Mast family members say the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.documentcloud.org\/documents\/23894831-doc-272-1-richard-emails\" target=\"_blank\">Americans suffered numerous injuries.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Joshua Mast was not at the raid. In <a href=\"https:\/\/www.documentcloud.org\/documents\/23887981-171-8\" target=\"_blank\">emails filed in federal court<\/a>, he said the baby was in the room with the fighters shooting at soldiers. He wrote that her biological father blew himself up with a suicide vest, just a few feet away from her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"5824\" height=\"3875\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AP23215631749850.jpg.jpg\" alt=\"U.S. Marine Corps Major Joshua Mast, center, talks with his attorneys during a break in the hearing in an ongoing custody battle over an Afghan orphan, at the Circuit Courthouse in Charlottesville, Va., Thursday, March 30, 2023.\" class=\"wp-image-108823\" srcset=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AP23215631749850.jpg.jpg 5824w, https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AP23215631749850.jpg.jpg?resize=300,200 300w, https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AP23215631749850.jpg.jpg?resize=768,511 768w, https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AP23215631749850.jpg.jpg?resize=1024,681 1024w, https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AP23215631749850.jpg.jpg?resize=1536,1022 1536w, https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AP23215631749850.jpg.jpg?resize=2048,1363 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 5824px) 100vw, 5824px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">FILE &#8211; U.S. Marine Corps Major Joshua Mast, center, talks with his attorneys during a break in the hearing in an ongoing custody battle over an Afghan orphan, at the Circuit Courthouse in Charlottesville, Va., Thursday, March 30, 2023. (Cliff Owen\/AP, File)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">U.S. troops blasted a hole in a wall and tossed in grenades, according to the summary. Next door to the foreigners\u2019 home, the farmer\u2019s family was woken up by the noise, the surviving children said. The son said his father shouted at the children to get to another room, but he didn\u2019t know where he should run. His sister grabbed the baby.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The blast that blew apart the walls of their home was so powerful that to this day, villagers believe the military dropped a bomb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cGet out of this place,\u201d the sister heard her father shout. Then came gunshots, she said. His shouting stopped. She dropped the baby.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The mangled bodies of her father and siblings lay on the floor, the girl said. Their father\u2019s motorcycle exploded into flames that spread and engulfed them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThere were soldiers, there were bombs\u2026.there were red fires,\u201d said the sister, her eyes darting, her voice shaking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">She burned her shoulder, hand and head. She ran and hid among the animals until the shooting stopped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Neighbors said the assault lasted until early the next morning. Green smoke lingered in the air, along with the smell of gunpowder and burned bodies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Soldiers found an injured woman and tried to save her life, but couldn\u2019t, Mast\u2019s summary says. They spotted a wounded baby nearby and assumed the dead woman was her mother.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The American soldiers took the baby.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">A missing baby girl<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After the helicopters flew away and it grew quiet, neighbors say they ventured out of their homes and walked toward the flames. They called out, doubting anyone had survived.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That\u2019s when they said they heard the cries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Four of the farmer\u2019s children had survived, so covered with dust and dirt they were almost unrecognizable, said neighbor Rahim. They staggered out of what once was their home, reduced to flames and ashes littered with charred corpses and limbs. It was difficult to tell who was alive and who was dead, Rahim said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A little boy had been hit in his belly by a metal fragment, and wailed that his family was killed, his uncle remembers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The stench from the bodies was overwhelming, so villagers scooped up the children and drove the injured to a government hospital. The boy would remain there for a month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIt was a very bad scene. There was nothing left,\u201d Rahim said. \u201cThe houses were blown away, and every dead body was under the soil.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As neighbors wept and pulled bodies from the rubble, people poured in from neighboring towns to help, villagers recalled. Soon everyone from the home was accounted for, either living or dead \u2014 except for one. They could not find the baby girl.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">They dug through the dirt floor of the home with shovels and their hands. They moved furniture and soil. They were worried that surely the baby \u2014 only 40 days old \u2014 was stuck under the earth or the debris and just too small to find.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But she was gone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">A child\u2019s fate in limbo<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The farmer, his wife and their five children were buried in a row in the family graveyard, where generations of kin had been laid to rest. Villagers said more than 100 people came to help dig their graves in the hard ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">They buried the foreigners \u2014 more than a dozen men, women and children \u2014 in two other cemeteries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The farmer\u2019s family says they were not fighters. If true, the American military might never have known that \u2014 during raids, they believed they were going in on hostile operations, and often assumed everyone there was a threat, said Erica Gaston, a human rights researcher who worked for years in Afghanistan with several advocacy groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cOften that creates a bias where there\u2019s just a presumption that the people that were hit were, you know, quote unquote, all bad guys,\u201d said Gaston. \u201cAnd civilians very often tell a different story\u2026.that they hit the wrong house.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the village, survivors continued to search for the farmer\u2019s missing baby, visiting a U.S. military base, going to government offices and talking to the International Committee of the Red Cross. They heard a baby had been taken by the Americans to a military hospital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For months, as the girl was treated for a skull fracture, burns and a broken leg, the Afghan government and the Red Cross worked to confirm who she belonged to. In the end, they decided she was the farmer\u2019s daughter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The U.S. State Department <a href=\"https:\/\/www.documentcloud.org\/documents\/23894885-untitled-document\" target=\"_blank\">wrote in an email to AP<\/a> earlier this month that it trusted the finding of the Red Cross\u2014 \u201cthrough a family trace and verification process, that the child was Afghan, not \u2018stateless.\u2019\u201d So when the government of Afghanistan requested the child be transferred to its custody to be returned to her family, the U.S. complied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe understood at the time that all appropriate procedures had been followed under Afghan law, and that remains our understanding,\u201d the State Department wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Masts argue the Afghan government wrongly linked the child to the family without DNA testing, pictures of her with this family or any documentation connecting her to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Joshua Mast\u2019s brother, lawyer Richard Mast, is now named in a federal lawsuit filed by the Afghan family that alleges the Masts fraudulently claimed the child was \u201cstateless\u201d in their quest to adopt her. Richard Mast\u2019s lawyer, David Yerushalmi, questioned why an innocent farmer would be <a href=\"https:\/\/www.documentcloud.org\/documents\/23894831-doc-272-1-richard-emails\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cliving in the same compound as heavily armed foreign fighters.\u201d<\/a> He said there is no proof the orphan belonged to the farmer in the first place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But the Masts\u2019 efforts to stop the U.S. government from turning her over failed, and the child was taken to the farmer\u2019s brother. Since he couldn\u2019t afford to take care of her, he gave her to his son and daughter-in-law, who were better off, educated newlyweds living in the city. They gladly agreed to raise her as their own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThey are her parents,\u201d the uncle told AP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Over the next 18 months, as she grew to be a toddler in Afghanistan, Joshua Mast did not give up. He convinced a Virginia state court to grant him an adoption. All he needed was to get her on U.S. soil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Less than two years after the raid, Mast helped the Afghan couple and the toddler flee as the country collapsed and the Taliban took over. Days after they arrived in the U.S., the Masts worked with federal employees at a refugee resettlement camp to take custody of the child. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.marinecorpstimes.com\/news\/your-marine-corps\/2022\/10\/20\/afghan-couple-accuse-us-marine-of-abducting-their-baby\/\" target=\"_blank\">The Afghan couple are suing<\/a> to get her back, but she <a href=\"https:\/\/www.marinecorpstimes.com\/news\/your-marine-corps\/2023\/04\/02\/marines-adoption-of-afghan-war-orphan-voided\/\" target=\"_blank\">remains in limbo<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Joshua Mast, his lawyer and attorneys representing the Afghan couple did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Meanwhile, in remote Afghanistan, the farmer\u2019s surviving family is haunted by all they saw, and all they lost. When his brother-in-law sees his nephew smile, he thinks of how his sister, now dead, would laugh when he teased her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cGod will make him grow,\u201d he said, \u201che will bring life to this house.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The boy continues to struggle and finds it hard to be around other families. When asked if he remembered his parents, he began to cry. He bit his lip and looked away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The girl who dropped her baby sister is tormented by ghosts. When she speaks to strangers covered in a shawl, she is so small and frail that it seems to swallow her. She fidgets nervously with the hem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">She could speak perfectly before the soldiers came that night, but now she stutters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cMy life is sad, my heart is sad, and I miss my parents,\u201d she said. \u201cI see this attack every night\u2026.it comes to me in my dreams.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>U.S. troops picked up an infant in the rubble after the raid; she\u2019s now at the center of an international custody dispute.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":108818,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":13,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[101,13,16,26],"tags":[],"coauthors":[7059,2963,1998,1989],"class_list":["post-76169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-news-roundup","category-flashpoints","category-news","category-newsletters"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"76XQDMSJWJHL7MNC7N6IFSLBHA","arc_canonical_url":"\/flashpoints\/afghanistan\/2023\/08\/06\/questions-surround-us-raid-in-afghanistan-in-2019\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented 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