The Decibel - The story of a secret mission to save more than 1,500 Afghans

Episode Date: November 1, 2024

Dr. Farouq Samim cried as the Taliban swept back into power in 2021. While he was safe in Ottawa, many members of his family were stranded – and at risk of death – back in Afghanistan. Determined to do something, he paired up with two lawyers he didn’t know to launch a secret mission: Operation Abraham.The Globe’s International Affairs reporter, Janice Dickson, got inside access on how this rescue effort ended up saving over 1,500 people over three years despite bureaucratic hurdles and increasing threats.Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at [e-mail]

It was heartbreaking. That's Dr. Farouk Samim recalling what it was like to watch the Taliban take Kabul, Afghanistan, on August 15, 2021. It was so disappointing for me, witnessing that beautiful democracy, that beautiful freedom. We lost it in one moment. Now, can you imagine how heartbreaking it was for me? I cried. It was a very, very difficult moment for me to see the country, my country of origin, the country that I was born, was going back in the hands of Taliban. And I was so disappointed. Farouk is trained as a medical doctor, but then he changed careers and became a journalist. This was years

before 2021. It was around the time Western forces took control of Afghanistan, pushing out the Taliban. And it was during that time that Farouk worked as a fixer. So a fixer has a very, very important role. You are the eyes and the ears and the guide and the protection and the security of a journalist who comes from a different culture. I worked as a fixer and a local stranger or reporter for the Chicago Tribune before I came to Canada. Farouk came to Canada many years before the Taliban regained power in 2021. But some of his family was still in Afghanistan, and they were at risk of being targeted by the Taliban because of Farouk's work as a fixer. And so he knew he needed to get them out of the country fast.

But he needed help. The help came in the form of two partners at the law firm Gowling WLG in Ottawa. Their names are Louis Reddick and Jacques Shore. It's as if everything stopped. That's Jacques. Look, it was very evident to me in the first phone call that I had with Farouk, just the incredible consternation, the pain, the absolute horror that was basically within him as he was watching what was happening in Kabul and in Afghanistan. And this pulled me in, and it was evident how quickly it pulled in Louis Reddick as well. I mean, here we are trying to be the fixer for the fixer. We really needed to help. We needed to do what we do to fix this situation. And that was our mission.

Jacques and Louis are not immigration lawyers. They specialize in regulatory, administrative, and commercial law. But that didn't stop them from teaming up with Farouk and launching a mission called Operation Abraham. As soon as I called upon them, they listened to my pleas. They put their sleeves up. And at that difficult moment, I found the right people

and they helped me the best they could. Their goal was to rescue as many Afghans being targeted by the Taliban as possible, because it was a matter of life and death. The Globe's international affairs reporter, Janice Dixon, spoke to Farouk, Jacques, and Lewis, and many others, to get the inside story of Operation Abraham. She's here today to explain how they managed to save more than 1,500 Afghans against all odds. I'm Maina Karaman-Wellms, and this is The Decibel from The Globe and Mail. Janice, great to have you back on the show.

Great to be here. So Janice, when this rescue mission story actually first began, I guess, who were the people they were initially focused on getting out of Afghanistan? So when the Taliban took over Afghanistan in August 2021, Farouk Sameem, you know, he was at home in Ottawa and all he could think about was his sister. And he actually told me that his parents told him, you know, look after your sister Shahnaz. And so he had been trying to bring her to Canada. And when the Taliban took over, he said to a friend of his, I need to get my sister out. So he started with his sister, and then he added to his immediate list for relatives through marriage. One of them worked at Afghanistan's presidential palace and was very much connected with the former Afghan government. And so he was in danger. His immediate relatives were in danger. And so that was Farouk's priority off the top. And I guess all of them, but especially his sister, may also be in danger because of Farouk's role in it and who he is.

Exactly. Yes, that's right. One of his nephews that actually went to the airport because he was so desperate to escape, he was an interpreter for NATO. He had been threatened by the Taliban before. There was a lot of chaos unfolding around the airport. And ultimately, there was an attack and he was killed in that attack at the airport. So Farouk ended up connecting with these two lawyers, Louis Reddick and Jack Shore. Janice, who did they reach out to originally when they started their work to try

and rescue people in Afghanistan? So they were reaching out to officials, anyone who might be able to help them, and ministers, minister staff. And Jacques quickly got on the phone, got writing emails to bureaucrats, officials, and really they weren't getting any kind of positive responses. They were saying, look, this is who Farouk is. This is his story. This is the circumstances that his relatives are in, and they desperately need help, and they need to come to Canada, and they weren't getting any positive responses. So I must tell you, and I'm not a naive person, but let me just say, I thought this would not be a difficult thing. I thought that we would very quickly be able to address this because clearly

the moment someone understands the kind of risk that Farouk's family was in, I thought this would be not difficult at all. Day two, day three, day four, day five. And oh my God, like what's going on here? At the beginning, it was very, very difficult. And you know what what made me hopeful and encouraged me? It was Jacques who told me Jacques and Louis Farouk were getting these answers, these no answers. But you know what? No is the beginning of a negotiation for a lawyer. And through this work, they were bumping into other groups that were also working on evacuations.

And so that's how they learned ultimately about a pair of planes that were at Mazar-Sharif Airport, which is in northern Afghanistan. And so Farouk's relatives and some of his former colleagues from the Chicago Tribune, they could get on these planes, but Operation Abraham would have to come up with a million dollars to pay for half the planes. Wow. It was insanely stressful at the moment, because how do you come up with that kind of money that quickly?

It was, you know, time was really of the essence, but they were able to do it thanks to American donors who said, you know, we will give you this money, but it has to be confidential. Wow. Okay. And so once they had that money, could they then get the people on those planes out of Afghanistan? So first they had to arrange for Farouk's relatives, but also hundreds of people that would be on the planes to actually get to where the planes were about to take off and Farouk actually became the main contact for all of these people because you know he spoke their language and they were terrified they were on these buses traveling you know 10 hours from Kabul to Mazar Sharif and And so he was, you know, offering them support and telling them like,

you know, it's going to be okay. I'm on the other end. Arranging these buses to go from Kabul to the airport was like a huge feat in its own, trying to keep all these people safe. And then at the same time, Jacques was writing emails to ambassadors of different countries, Canadian officials, saying, you know, we've got these two planes with hundreds of Afghans on board that need to be rescued. And five of them are Farouk's relatives, but we need somewhere for them to land. The passengers ultimately flew from Afghanistan to Qatar about three weeks after that bus journey. And then they made it to a U.S. airbase there. So that's kind of the initial group, Janice, that they wanted to get out of Afghanistan.

What did Farouk and Jack Shore and Louis Retik, what did they do after that? So while they were working on the planes, and I suppose while the planes were were pretty much set, they were hearing about other people who needed help. Never, never, never did anyone ever say, no, we can't do this. And it just it just grew for us to realize that we are on a mission. And so how does that work? Like logistically, what do they need to do in order to get those people out of the country? Well, planes was no longer going to be an option. And so at this point, they started writing the government because the federal government announced a couple of immigration programs aimed at resettling Afghans. And so they were sort of applying for people to come to Canada while at the same

time figuring out how to rescue them. And really rescuing them was the priority. They wanted to get them out of the country and then sort of deal with the rest. But they realized that they needed a passport to escape. And I guess we should just say it's because they would have to go to the Taliban to try to get a passport. It's kind of getting a government document without really being able to go to the government because you're being put in danger then. That's right. And it was total chaos at the time. And of course, if you're somebody that's fleeing the Taliban, you're not going to want to show up to an office and ask them for a passport. In certain examples, there was a missing passport for a newborn in a family or a senior in a family or one person in the family. And the whole family was stranded inside Afghanistan.

They could not leave. They found out that Afghanistan's embassy in Moscow was one of the only embassies abroad that could print passports for them if the ambassador agreed. And so their next step was connecting with the ambassador. They spoke with him on the phone. They had a video call with him. They told him who they wanted to help and who they were. And ultimately, he agreed to deploy his staff to print these passports. I guess the next question I have, too, is how do they get the details for those passports?

Because people can't show up in person to fill out these application forms. They're still in Afghanistan. So how do they get that done? form, send it to Louis. Louis would prepare sort of the legal aspect of the passport and then send it off to Moscow, which would then print it. And so it was a lot of back and forth and making sure that these, I mean, they were above board passports. That's the other element to this. Like it all had correct information. And well, I guess one aspect of this is that Farouk did have to forge a lot of signatures. Ah, okay. Because, yeah, that is something you need on your passport, right? Yeah, that's right.

And that was hard for most people to do. So he was doing that as well. Wow. This is incredible. So this information for these applications are coming from all over Afghanistan. They're going to Ottawa. Farouk is then kind of compiling and making sure it's all in good shape and then sending it on to the embassy in Moscow where they can be printed. Quite an operation. And I guess I wonder about that last part in the embassy, because technically, if the Taliban is running the government of

Afghanistan, don't they kind of have control over the embassy? Couldn't they stop them from printing it at any time? They could. And I guess at that point, fortunately, the ambassador still had control over the embassy and he would for quite a few months that followed. But eventually the Taliban did take over that embassy. Okay. So did they actually get these printed before that point, though? That's right. They printed at least 400 passports for Operation Abraham. Now there was only one problem, getting the passports out of Russia. We'll be right back. Okay, so in a way to recap a little bit here, Janice, Operation Abraham has already done a lot at this point, right? They managed to get two chartered planes out of Afghanistan. Then they got this embassy in Russia to print hundreds of passports for people in Afghanistan who needed them in order

to get out of the country. I guess the next big hurdle then is how do they actually get those passports from Moscow into Afghanistan? So first they had to find someone willing to do it. And Farouk asked a friend of his in Ottawa if he knew anyone. And that individual was thinking about it and ultimately came up with his own brother, who we call Ahmed in the story. And I know that Ahmed initially also had to think about it because it's quite a daring mission. And the reason why we're using a pseudonym is because it is so daring, right? And it could be in danger. Exactly. That's right.

And so he agreed to do it. He saw it as an opportunity to save many lives. told me the story about going to the airport and just being terrified because he was carrying 300 Afghan passports in his suitcase. And he wrapped his suitcase in layers of plastic because he thought, okay, if I go to the airport and I have a flight that's sort of in the middle of the day, it'll be really busy. I'll wrap my suitcase in plastic. And then there's no way a guard will take the time to like unwrap it and all of this. And so his bag goes through a security scanner. Then he goes through and then he sees a guard on the other side. And the guard says, what are these little booklets in your bag? And so he says, oh, you know, I'm going to a food

exhibition in Tehran. and these are brochures. And then there was actually an event that was going to take place a couple days after he arrived in Tehran, and so he had all the details. He was fully prepared, and the guard waved him through, and his bag was checked all the way. And so he started texting Louis and Farouk that he had made it, and he was keeping them in the loop the whole time. And I followed them. I asked them to share their life locations with me. And I did not go to sleep until I could hear that the people were safe and the passports were safe.

And every moment of it was an adventure, a dangerous adventure, a dangerous thing for those heroes to do. And I was so scared every moment of it. Wow, that's incredible. So he gets through the airport scanner. The bag then is in Tehran with all the passports. What happens next? How do we get from Tehran and then, I guess, into Afghanistan? So he goes to a hotel that night. And the next day, he had a friend swing by and pick him up.

He hid the passports under the back seat. And then they drive basically a full day to reach the border. And then the next day, he has to find a truck driver to actually bring them across. And then he tapped into his network and found someone that he knew that could take them across. Okay. So where did the passports go after that? The passports just make it across the border to Herat. Farouk finds someone through actually the same friend in Ottawa to arrange someone to pick up the passports, bring them home. And so this man picks them up, brings them home. And then Farouk arranges another contact to pick up the passports, bring them home. And so this man picks them up, brings them home.

And then Farouk arranges another contact to pick them up and get them on a bus to Kabul. Okay, so then they're in Kabul, then who picks them up next? So Farouk's nephew and his wife, who was pregnant at the time, picked up the passports. Their names are Nawid and Nilab. And Nilab has told Nawid, you know, I'll go with you to pick up the passports. Their names are Nawid and Nilab. And Nilab has told Nawid, you know, I'll go with you to pick up the passports. Because if there's a woman in the car, it'll be less likely that the car will be searched. Their first Taliban checkpoint was like 15 minutes from their home. And they were terrified. But they said that they were going to pick up some food and go to a warehouse area, sort of like a shopping area. And they were waved through.

And then Nowid told me that he was just terrified to meet this bus driver who's picking up the passports because just nobody trusts anyone in this situation. It's like, you know, they're dealing with a package that if they were found out, you know, they could be killed. And so could all of the people the passports belong to. And so he was trembling. He said when he saw the guy, he could see that he was terrified. And they just sort of very swiftly took this package from him. And then Nila put it underneath her burqa. There were dangerous moments that I was worried about those people. Accepting that level of danger, that shows very strong humanity, strong courage. She was particularly afraid on the drive home because now they've got this package and she's

thinking like about her family. You know, she just felt very emotional, like her heart was pounding and she was fearful that they would be caught. And then ultimately they made it. Okay, so now they've got the hundreds of passports in Kabul. They're safe there. But now I guess the question is, well, how do you get them to the people who need them,

whose passports they are? So what's kind of the next step there, Janice? Now we hid the passports in a water tank that's above their house, just in case there's a search or he was followed. He wanted to make sure that they were hidden. And then he put a number of passports on buses that would be sent to people around the country. And then a number of people picked them up from him, but he didn't want to share his address. So he would pick a meeting place like a bakery and give them the envelope that would contain the passport. And then in some cases, people were too terrified even around Kabul to go and pick them up. So he would deliver them to people as well.

So in this way, did they actually get every passport to the person who needed it? They did. Wow. Okay, so that's all the things that are happening in Afghanistan. I guess I wonder what's happening in Canada at the same time, because there's the first process is getting people out of Afghanistan, but then a lot of these people want to come to Canada. So Farouk was helping with those applications, right, to go to Canadian immigration. What is the status of things there? So Farouk and Lewis at this time are mostly worried about the passports making it from Russia to Afghanistan.

Jacques is meanwhile dealing with the bureaucracy. He's emailing officials and he's saying, like looking for updates on their applications, saying these are the families that we represent. Where are they in the system? What's happening? And it was just nothing. There was no movement whatsoever. Here, there was a moral imperative that had to drive us and had to drive those with whom we were speaking to understand what needed to be done to save lives. I don't care if you have a program that doesn't work. I don't care that this is an impossible task for you right now. I don't care that no one's able to actually communicate properly with your

IRC desks or whatever. I care about what we need to do morally justified in terms of what Canada's responsibility is to those with whom we worked and those that worked side by side by us and those that risk their lives to take care of our troops and be side by side to our troops, as Farouk was. That was critical. And then at the end of May 2022, one of the people on their list who had actually picked up a passport from Nawid was shot by the Taliban. And so after that, Jacques and Farouk met with a ministerial staffer in Jacques' office, and they said, look, this is what happened to one of the people we're trying to save. It's clearly way too dangerous for these individuals to stay in Afghanistan. And they ultimately agreed that they should move everybody to Pakistan.

Okay, so then did a number of people actually cross the border then and they were waiting in Pakistan then for things to happen? They did. And it didn't happen instantly. I know from meeting a number of these families in Pakistan that a number of them arrived in June. So not too long after this individual was killed, did they make it there? But of course, that's a whole other component that they had to worry about arranging and getting people out of the country safely. Now, these families were sent to rooms and places that Operation Abraham could try to help support them. But of course, you're talking about a lot of families and quite a few people. I met these families there. And so I saw that the conditions that they're living in,

and it was very dire for all of them. There was a moment also where I literally broke down when we had to explain that we don't have enough food in Pakistan for the families. The mothers had to actually dilute their formula for their babies. They had to decide which child was going to eat, which child would not have food that day, or who would have the smallest portion. Eventually, did some of them who wanted to come to Canada, did they end up coming here? a number of emails that showed mostly Jacques at this point really urging officials, like, people have been there for nearly a whole year. And in fact, some actually made it even later than that, like they were there in Pakistan for so long. In the end, how many people did

Operation Abraham actually rescue? So they estimate that they've rescued more than 1500 people. Operation Abraham saved some amazing lives. That could be a great contribution to our diversity in Canada. Our children are Operation Abraham children are going to school. Women are going to school to learn English. People are working and already paying for their life. And they are so grateful to the country of Canada. These are the beautiful stories of Operation Abraham, just as a tiny but mighty group. And do we know why this group ended up calling their work Operation Abraham? Jacques said that when they had this extremely daunting task of coming up with a million dollars very quickly, he was on a conference call with others involved and was sort of saying, you know, how do we get into this?

This is such an enormous challenge. And he said, you know, it's because of Abraham. And Abraham was the patriarch of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. You know, this interfaithness is a good example of the kind of cohesion between diversities in the world that we need. You know, Jacques and Louis both had family members who survived the Holocaust. And so, you know, I know Jacques described it once as feeling like it was in his DNA to try and save people and embark on this. These were Jews helping Muslims. And that's very much also what this story is about. And it was in the context of the spirit and the principle of Tikkun Olam, which is a Hebrew word, which means to repair the world.

There was an obligation, there was a responsibility to do whatever we could in any event to help Farouk and do what we could to save these lives. Just lastly here, Janice, now that they've gotten all these people to safety and their story is out there, I guess I'm wondering how they feel, how Farouk and Jacques and Louis, how are they feeling about all of this?

Well, I know that the past three years have been exhausting and it was a lot of difficulty, a lot of really challenging work. I know that they're thrilled with the success that they've had in saving lives. And it just strikes me that these three individuals have also come together in this way to save people. And they really have a special bond. We went through a very significant ordeal. This was a journey that we had not anticipated going through together. But we feel for each other. And we recognize that what we had to do together would basically grow our family and our collective family, in a sense, to do that. I can see it when I've interviewed the three of them together and the way that they talk to one another and about one another. they really have this really strong friendship as a result of the amazing work that they've done together.

In my mother tongue, there's a beautiful saying that says, Life is too short to love. Why find time to hate? Operation Abraham is an example of showing love to the world. Janice, this is such an incredible story. Thank you so much for your reporting and for being here today. Thanks so much for having me. That's it for today. I'm Mainika Raman-Wellms. Our producers are Madeline White, Michal Stein, and Allie Graham. David Crosby edits the show. Adrian Chung is our senior producer,

and Matt Frainer is our managing editor. Thanks so much for listening, and I'll talk to you soon.