Mohommad Nazeer Paktyawal served alongside US special forces in eastern Afghanistan starting around 2005, patrolling the Pakistan border so American soldiers could come home alive. After the Taliban took over in 2021, he did what the US told him to do: he fled to America with his family. Last Friday, ICE arrested him outside his Dallas-area apartment. He was dead within 24 hours. He was 41. He had six children, the youngest an American citizen at 18 months old.
DHS lied, claiming he “provided no record of his military service” upon entry. AfghanEvac provided a certificate of service proving otherwise. DHS spokesperson Lauren Bis used the occasion of his death to attack Afghan evacuees as “unvetted”, which is a claim CNN politely notes is misleading, since all were screened by intelligence, law enforcement, and counterterrorism professionals, sometimes more than once.
The administration’s position is now clear: the people who risked their lives for American operations are retroactively reclassified as threats the moment it becomes politically convenient.
No wonder their current Iran war is failing so obviously.
- We won
- We’re winning
- Send help
Paktyawal is the 12th detainee to be killed by ICE custody this year. His brother called him a hero. “He was here,” he said, “and he just got killed in less than 24 hours.”
The Trump trap cycle of “protection” completes itself:
- Register for protection
- Get identified for removal
- Die in the process