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 Aryana Sayeed has divided her
time between Turkey, Britain and Afghanistan and
had been in Kabul in recent months to start a
clothing business. She told Reuters in a weekend
interview she received a call on Aug. 14 warning
her that the Taliban were closing in on the
capital. When the Taliban last held power from
1996 to 2001, they brutally enforced an
interpretation of Sunni Islam that banned women
from work and school.
Sayeed and her fiance Hasib Sayed made
reservations on a commercial flight scheduled
Aug. 15, the day the Taliban entered Kabul,
months after American troops ended U.S.
involvement in the Afghan war.
The overcrowded commercial flight never took
off, Sayeed said in a Washington-area hotel,
describing airport scenes of panic punctuated by
the sound of gunfire.
She and Sayed, fearful of being recognized by
Taliban fighters, left the airport and sheltered
with relatives in Kabul. The next day, they
heard Taliban forces were searching door-to-door
in their neighborhood. Sayeed again went to the
airport, wearing a veil that revealed only her
eyes and traveling with Sayed's young cousin as
if on a family outing.
"We passed through five Taliban checkpoints. One
of them stopped our car," Sayeed said. "The
minute he saw me and the little boy, he said,
'Go.'"
Sayed, in a separate car, was the first to reach
the U.S. military-controlled airport. Sayeed
said he was recognized by an Afghan at the
airport who told a U.S. official: "This is the
fiance of a very famous singer in Afghanistan,
and you should let him in because if they catch
him, they will kill him."
Sayed, a Canadian citizen, was allowed in and
contacted Sayeed. His relatives escorted her to
the airport. The two flew out on a U.S. military
plane early Aug. 17, landing first in Doha,
Qatar. On Aug. 19 they reached the United
States. The couple planned to leave Tuesday for
Istanbul via Amsterdam.
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 "I got lucky to get out of
Afghanistan. But what about the rest of the
people that are there?" Sayeed, a British
citizen, told Reuters. She was dressed in a
T-shirt with a U.S. flag on the sleeve that she
had been given in Doha. She had left Kabul with
only the clothes she was wearing that evening.
Some of her 1.4 million Instagram followers have
wished her well since she left Kabul.
Taliban statements have created uncertainty
about whether women in Afghanistan https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/islamic-scholars-decide-role-women-afghanistan-senior-taliban-member-2021-08-18
will be able to work, study and choose how they
dress. Women have been forced from jobs https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/afghan-women-bankers-forced-roles-taliban-takes-control-2021-08-13
as the Taliban swept across Afghanistan in
recent weeks. Sayeed called on the international
community not to forget Afghans, particularly
women and children.
"For the past 20 years, I mean, so many girls
and so many women, they went to schools, they
got educated. So many of them are school
teachers, doctors ... so many achievements,"
Sayeed said. "How can it all just end, just like
that?"
(Reporting by Greg Savoy; Additional reporting
and writing by Merdie Nzanga in Washington;
Editing by Donna Bryson and Richard Chang)
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