The girls on Afghanistan’s national soccer team were anxious. For weeks, they had been moving around the country, waiting for word that they could leave.
One wants to be a doctor, another a movie producer, others engineers. All dream of growing up to be professional soccer players.
The message finally came early on Sunday: A charter flight would carry the girls and their families from Afghanistan — to where they did not know. The buses that would take them to the airport were already on their way.
Photo: AP
“They left their homes and left everything behind,” said Farkhunda Muhtaj, the captain of the Afghanistan women’s national team, who from her home in Canada had spent the past few weeks communicating with the girls and working to help arrange their rescue. “They can’t fathom that they’re out of Afghanistan.”
Since the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, the girls, aged 14 to 16, and their families, had been trying to leave, fearing what their lives might become like under the Taliban — not just because women and girls are forbidden from playing sports, but because they were advocates for girls and active members of their communities.
They landed in Portugal’s capital, Lisbon, late on Sunday.
In interviews this week, Muhtaj, members of the soccer team, some of their family members, and soccer federation staff, spoke about their final days in Afghanistan, the international effort to rescue them and the promise of their newfound freedom.
The rescue mission, called Operation Soccer Balls, was coordinated with the Taliban through an international coalition of former US military and intelligence officials, US Senator Chris Coons, US allies and humanitarian groups, said Nic McKinley, a CIA and US Air Force veteran who founded Dallas-based DeliverFund, a nonprofit that has secured housing for 50 Afghan families.
“This all had to happen very, very quickly. Our contact on the ground told us that we had a window of about three hours,” McKinley said. “Time was very much of the essence.”
Operation Soccer Balls had suffered a number of setbacks, including several failed rescue attempts, and a suicide bombing carried out by Islamic State militants at Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport that killed 169 Afghans and 13 US service members.
That bombing came during a harrowing airlift in which the US military has acknowledged it was coordinating to some extent with the Taliban.
Complicating the rescue effort was the size of the group — 80 people, including the 26 youth team members, as well as adults and other children, including infants.
Robert McCreary, a former congressional chief of staff and White House official under former US president George W. Bush who has worked with special forces in Afghanistan and helped lead the effort to rescue the national girls soccer team, said Portugal granted the girls and their families asylum.
“The world came together to help these girls and their families,” McCreary said. “These girls are truly a symbol of light for the world and humanity.”
The Taliban have tried to present a new image, promising amnesty to former opponents and an inclusive government. Many Afghans do not trust those promises, fearing the Taliban will quickly resort to the brutal tactics of their 1996-2001 rule, including barring girls and women from schools and jobs.
This week, the Taliban set up the Afghan Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice in the building that once housed the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, the latest sign that it is restricting women’s rights.
As the girls moved from safehouse to safehouse, Muhtaj, who is also a teacher, said she helped them remain calm through virtual exercise and yoga sessions, and by giving them homework assignments, including writing autobiographies.
She said that she could not share details about the rescue mission with the girls or their families, and asked them to believe in her and others “blindly.”
“Their mental state was deteriorating. Many of them were homesick. Many of them missed their friends in Kabul,” Muhtaj said. “They had unconditional faith. We’ve revived their spirit.”
Some of the girls spoke to The Associated Press through an interpreter.
They said they want to continue playing soccer — something they were urged to not do while they were in hiding — and hope to meet soccer superstar Cristiano Ronaldo.
Wida Zemarai, a goalkeeper and coach for the Afghanistan women’s national soccer team who moved to Sweden after the Taliban ascended to power in 1996, said the girls were emotional after their rescue.
“They can dream now,” Zemarai said. “They can continue to play.”
Taiwanese world No. 1 women’s doubles star Hsieh Su-wei on Saturday overcame a first-set loss to win her opening match at the Madrid Open. Top seeds Hsieh and partner Elise Mertens of Belgium, with whom she last month won her fourth Indian Wells women’s doubles title, bounced back from a rocky first set to beat Asia Muhammad of the US and Aldila Sutjiadi of Indonesia 2-6, 6-4, 10-2. Hsieh and Mertens were next to face Heather Watson of the UK and Xu Yifan of China in the round of 16. Thirty-eight-year-old Hsieh last month reclaimed her world No. 1 spot after her Indian
EYES ON THE PRIZE: Armed with three solid men’s singles shuttlers and doubles Olympic champions, Taiwan aim to make their first Thomas Cup semi-final, Chou Tien-chen said Taiwanese badminton star Tai Tzu-ying yesterday quickly dispatched Malaysia’s Goh Jin Wei in straight sets, while her male counterpart Chou Tien-chen beat Germany’s Kai Schaefer, as Taiwan’s women’s and men’s teams won their Group B opening rounds of the TotalEnergies BWF Thomas and Uber Cup Finals in Chengdu, China. World No. 5 Tai beat Goh 21-19, 22-20 in a speedy 33 minutes, her fourth straight victory over the world No. 24 shuttler since they first faced each other in the quarter-finals of the 2018 Malaysia Open, where Tai went on to win the women’s singles title. Malaysia followed up Tai’s opening victory
Chen Yi-tung (陳奕通) secured a historic Olympic berth on Sunday by winning the senior men’s foil event at the 2024 Asia Oceania Zonal Olympic Fencing Qualifiers in United Arab Emirates. Chen defeated Samuel Elijah of Singapore 15-4 in the final in Dubai to secure the only wild card in the event, making him the first male Olympian fencer from Taiwan in 36 years and only the sixth Taiwanese fencer to ever qualify for the quadrennial event. The last appearance by a Taiwanese male fencer at the Olympics was in 1988, when Wang San-tsai (王三財) and Cheng Ming-hsiang (鄭明祥) competed in Seoul. The
Rafael Nadal on Tuesday lost in straight sets to 31st-ranked Jiri Lehecka in the fourth round at the Madrid Open, while Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei advanced to the semi-finals in the women’s doubles. Nadal said that he was feeling good about his progress following his latest injury layoff. Nadal called it a “positive week” in every way and said his body held up well. “I was able to play four matches, a couple of tough matches,” Nadal said. “So very positive, winning three matches, playing four matches at the high level of tennis. I enjoyed a lot playing at home. I leave here with