Hamed Aleaziz

essential to the United States' ability to maintain security in Afghanistan.

But human rights organizations criticized the work of this Zero Unit group.

They alleged that Zero Unit went further than was necessary, and they called them death squads.

They were conducting extrajudicial killings, killing civilians.

These are all allegations that were made

during this time about this group.

Yeah, what we've learned is that Mr. Lachenwal specifically really struggled with the actions that his group undertook in Afghanistan.

And he expressed this to a friend in Afghanistan who actually spoke with one of our colleagues.

And this friend said that Mr. Lachenwal was going through some...

mental health issues and really in his telling this was clearly somebody who was traumatized from his experience as a part of zero units but despite that he remained in this unit up until the taliban took over the country in 2021. well bring us to that very dramatic

For Lock and Wall and other Afghans who closely helped the United States government, suddenly they become targets for the Taliban.

And there's this incredible pressure on the Biden administration to not leave behind those people who risked their lives in protecting the United States government.

Yeah.

And Mr. Lock and Wall, along with other members of the Zero Unit, were among the first people to flee Afghanistan and be brought by the United States government to America for protection.

So he comes to the United States as part of a program called Operation Allies Welcome.

And as part of this program, the Biden administration set up layers of vetting.

They collected biometrics from these people, and they ran their information through U.S.

databases for any potential terrorism hits, criminal hits, any...

potentially derogatory information.

And then when these individuals came to the United States, the Department of Homeland Security conducted another layer of vetting by Customs and Border Protection officers at the airports.