Wounded, Abandoned, and Still Hoping

From Battlefield Ally to Forgotten Casualty: My Life After the U.S. Withdrawal

My name is M Karim. For several years, I served in the Afghan National Army at the base of the 205th Atal Corps in Kandahar Province.

One day, while on duty in the Zhari district, in the village of Spin Pir, I was severely injured by a landmine explosion. After some time, I was officially declared permanently disabled.

Before this injury, I had carried out many operations on foot alongside NATO forces. I also served at Camp Azizullah in the Balloon section, where I was the representative of my battalion in the joint operations center with international forces.

Whenever the enemy was active, I would share their coordinates with our troops. If they were able, they would respond directly. If the threat was too great, we would call for NATO support.

We fought against terrorism. We sacrificed. These terrorists weren’t just enemies of Afghanistan. They were enemies of the entire world.

Members of the Afghan military unload a wounded soldier from an ambulance at the Tirin Kot air base in Uruzgan on May 4, 2017.

I fought shoulder to shoulder with NATO soldiers for years, and I became one of the many victims of this brutal war.But then came a betrayal we never expected. After all those years of sacrifice, the United States entered negotiations with the Taliban in Qatar. Zalmay Khalilzad, their envoy, betrayed Afghanistan and handed our country over to terrorists.