Assist an American Afghani hero recover in US
My name is Phillip Edwards and I retired from the US Army in 2014 out of Ft Bragg, NC. During my 33 1/2 years of service, I spent five tours in Iraq and three tours in Afghanistan. While in Afghanistan, I met and worked very closely with an Afghan national who had become a US citizen and was working to help reconstruct his homeland. With the deteriorating circumstances in Afghanistan now, I am working hard to help this dear friend and ally to return to the United States and rebuild a business and a home he left in Reno, Nevada, in 2001 when he was recruited by the US Government to return to Afghanistan and assist the US in tracking down, capturing, and eliminating high-level Taliban leaders who had escaped the US net after 9/11. Sher Dil Qaderi, a Naturalized US citizen, gave up his home and a restaurant business he and his wife had built in Reno, Nevada, in order to serve both his new country and the country of his birth.
This is his story:
Sher Dil Qaderi was recruited by Ahmad Shah Massoud out of the Panjshir Valley in 1979 when he was 13. His family owned a restaurant in the valley. His brother, Sher Ali Qaderi, was in the Afghan Army and discontent with the way the government was handling the situation with the Russians. Ali defected and went home with some weapons. Sher Ali and Ahmad Shah Massoud and others would hold secret meetings at the family restaurant. Sher Dil attended those meetings and wanted to join them but was told by his father that he couldn’t. When they all agreed to band together and fight the Russians, Massoud took a group of fighters from the Panjshir and moved into the mountains to train. When they left, Sher Dil asked his father again if he could join them and he was told no, so, he snuck out a window and went into the mountains and joined Massoud anyway. He was assigned to a group of thirty fighters whose mission was to recruit and train fighters in other regions as well as conduct commando missions of their own when the opportunity presented itself. Of those original 30 fighters, only two have survived.
Between tours of fighting, he and others in his commando group went to surrounding towns to train villagers in guerrilla warfare so that they could defend themselves against the Soviet Union--and survive in the attempt. Through those recruiting and training missions, Sher Dil would come to meet and know all of the upcoming Afghan warlords and Freedom Fighters in the country as well as all of their hiding places. Those individuals and that information would become invaluable in the future while fighting against the Taliban.
The teen spent the next six years caught in that cycle.
Sher Dil at a Mujahidin training camp
Sher Dil with Ahmad Shah Massoud
War took its toll on Sherdil's family, who lived in the Panjsher Valley as well. The Russians destroyed his family's home nine times. They would repair it only to have it destroyed again. With his father father getting older, his mother decided there wasn't any place in Afghanistan to live anymore.
So, the family moved to Pakistan, where Sherdil got a job doing the only thing that he knew other than guerrilla fighting. He became a driver. In a short time, he was driving an ambulance for a nonprofit group called Freedom Medicine. That's where, in 1985, he met Gay-LeClerc Lyons, co-founder, President and CEO of the organization. Freedom Medicine was given $500,000 by a man named Vaughn F (name redacted for protection and privacy) to conduct cross border assistance operations from Pakistan into Afghanistan, part of a $15 million Congressional grant used to finance 13 similar groups under the direction of a man named Hasan Nouri.
In the mid-1980s, Freedom Medicine trained Afghan freedom fighters to become medics, and then sent them into the Afghan interior with the supplies to start clinics. Gay LeClerc remembers loading up horses with carefully wrapped boxes containing medical supplies. The trip took 15 days over 12,000-foot high mountain passes. But the clinics were desperately needed.
In 1988, Sher Dil married Gay-LeClerc Lyon in Chitral, Pakistan. His family was not involved in this marriage and his father was unhappy with his decision. His family felt that this marriage to a foreigner damaged their standing in the close-knit community. He and Gay-LeClerc moved to the United States in 1989 where they married again in accordance with US law in New York and, five years later, Sher Dil became a Naturalized US citizen.
They settled in Reno, Nevada, where they ran a restaurant called the One Stop Burger Shop on South Virginia Street that served an assortment of hamburgers, gyros, kabobs and falafel. During this time, Sher Dil remained off the radar until he was informed of the assassination of Ahmad Shah Massoud at the hands of Taliban suicide bombers on 9 September 2001, two days before the Taliban attacked the Trade Towers in NYC.
On 13 November 2001, Sher Dil was summoned to CENTCOM Headquarters in Florida and Vaughn F introduced him to USASOC Brigadier General H (name redacted for privacy reasons) who would be his companion for the next year.
The two of them then travelled to Tajikistan and Uzbekistan and prepared to enter Afghanistan. They were granted permission to cross into Afghanistan on 24 November 2001.
When that period of service in 2001 – 2002 ended, Sher Dil and Gay-LeClerc formed a Non-Government Organization called Friends for Afghan Reconstruction (FAR) to do humanitarian work and help rebuild the country. His cooperation and work with the US Army would have ended at that point if it had not been for his introduction to me in December 2002. I was an Army Civilian working for 18th Airborne Corps at Bagram Airbase at the time.
Over the next six years, Sher Dil provided invaluable service in Afghanistan through his extensive contacts in the government and through his efforts with his wife with FAR.
On 19 January 2003, elements from the 82 Abn Div, 82 Combat Aviation Brigade delivered food and humanitarian supplies to the SOF and Civil Affairs units supporting the Hazara Tribe on the Bamiyan Plateau. Sher Dil Qaderi accompanied US Forces and me on that mission to provide humanitarian aid to the Hazara tribe on the plateau above Bamiyan. Churches in the US sent clothing to me at Bagram and Sher Dil, with funding from me, was able to procure bags of rice for the Hazara families. The 82 CAB took the aid to Bamiyan as part of their regular resupply mission for the SOF and Civil Affairs units supporting the Hazara in Bamiyan.
In 2007, Sher Dil agreed to give a tour of the Panjshir Valley to the officers and NCO’s of the 82 Combat Aviation Brigade. No American unit had ever been allowed to tour the valley before and Sher Dil was able to provide a perspective that no one else could possible provide. He showed the Soldiers where Russian units had attempted to invade the valley many times and explained what he and the other Freedom Fighters did to stop them. He was able to describe battles and the efforts of the Freedom Fighters to defend the valley. He also arranged something for the Soldiers that no one expected. He was able to convince the Director of the Massoud Memorial to allow US Soldiers to visit the grave of Ahmad Shah Massoud in the basement below the building. This was a great honor to be allowed in the Memorial and to stand and pay reverence to the Lion of the Panjsher.
After my departure from Afghanistan in 2008, Sher Dil and Gay LeClerc lived in Kabul for 2 more years working with FAR. In 2009, Gay-LeClerc and their adopted daughter Ayesha returned to the United States. Sher Dil stayed in Kabul to continue the humanitarian and reconstruction work. He would regularly return to the US to visit Gay-LeClerc and Ayesha. He lived in Kabul and adopted his oldest son, Amer who had been abandoned at birth on the doorstep of a mosque in the Panjshir Valley. He and Gay-LeClerc were amicably divorced on July 10, 2013 and, shortly thereafter, Sher Dil married Shakila Rahmani on 21 August 2014.
Since that time, things have considerably changed in Afghanistan. The recent Peace Agreement between the US and the Taliban has made the eventual return of the Taliban to Kabul a certainty and, while everyone is hoping that they will return peacefully, reality dictates that it is not in the nature of the Taliban to be either forgetful or forgiving of Afghan citizens who supported US forces in the fight against the Taliban. Sher Dil is a very prominent figure in that fight and he has been marked for assassination by the Taliban upon their return. Several attempts have already been made against his life. Following an unsuccessful assassination attempt in 2018, Sher Dil went into hiding in Kabul and stopped working. He has been supported only by me.
A visa application was submitted for his wife in May 2020 and that application has SLOWLY shifted through the government bureaucratic process until, at this point, all we are waiting on is her visa interview date at the US embassy in Kabul. We were told on 8 August that they would try to get that interview done on 15 August.
The visa application filed for the oldest and adopted son was denied on 9 March 2021 because, even though Sher Dil was granted permanent custody of the boy by the Supreme Court of Afghanistan, Kabul Juvenile Division in 2019, the State Department ruled that the custody order does not rise to the level of a formal custody ruling by US standards. Sher Dil's attorney then filed an Application for Humanitarian Parole as well as a request to expedite the application in July 2021 and that application is being reviewed now by DHS.
The third and final piece of the bureaucratic puzzle involves obtaining US passports for Sher Dil’s the three youngest natural sons. He submitted the DS-2029’s (Application for Consular Report of Birth Abroad to a US Citizen) on 6 October 2020 and sent all of the supporting documentation the Kabul embassy requested the same day. The embassy replied on 13 October 2020 saying he merely needed to set an appointment date; however, shortly thereafter, the embassy closed due to Covid-19 protocols and the passports were put on hold. All attempts by Sher Dil to contact the American Service Center at the embassy to get an appointment for the passports went unanswered until 27 July 2021. On that date, a letter from me to the American Service Center office in the US Embassy in Kabul prompted ASC to contact Sher Dil and grant him a CRBA appointment for his sons on 8 August 2021. The appointment went very well and the three youngest sons will pick up their passports on 15 August.
That brings us to the evacuation flights leaving Afghanistan this past week taking the Afghan interpreter refugees to Ft Lee, Virginia. The Washington Post announced the first flight of 200 yesterday arriving in Virginia. By all rights, Mr Qaderi and his family should have been on that flight. The imminent threat to his life coupled with the advanced stages of processing of the visa and Humanitarian Parole for his wife and son, make him more than justified in being on that or any subsequent flights out of Afghanistan.
After inquiring about that possibility, I received an email from Gen. P on 30 July 2021 which stated, “while I very much appreciate what he did helping MG T H, et al, (this organization) is laser-focused on its mission of helping those who qualify for SIV visas. And I’m afraid we need to stay riveted on that.” Bottom line: Help denied.
That decision by Gen. P and his organization prompted this effort to go public with Sher Dil’s story in order to garner some public action to remedy the situation. Surely there are others out there with a sense of honor and a duty to assist those in Afghanistan who risked their lives in the service of the United States.
The reason we have posted this GoFundMe site is to assist Sher Dil in transitioning to life in the United States and starting a new business to replace the one he gave up in Reno, Nevada, to serve his country. I took out a personal loan to renovate a small house on my property so that Sher Dil will have a place to stay until he gets onto his feet and can support his family. He also needs money to start up a restaurant. That is the sole goal of this GoFundMe page; to support this heroic US citizen and help him support his family. Sher Dil Qaderi is both an Afghan and American hero and has served his country in an exemplary manner in the fight against the Taliban. This country owes him a debt of gratitude that can only be manifested in its timely effort to return him and his family to the safety of US soil and to assist him in supporting his family like he was in Reno, Nevada, before his country called him to serve.
Won't you please help me to support this brave man in rebuilding a secure life for his wife and four sons here in the US?
Update as of 3 December 2021: Sher Dil still has not found a job and the prospects of starting a restaurant appear dismal with the little support he has received to date. We truly appreciate all those who have made an effort to help but it just has not been enough. The house we have been working on every day since his arrival is about 75% complete but the family is still living in an RV camper in my back yard. With Winter rapidly approaching, the prospect of his family remaining in that RV during the months of January and February as just plain scary. We get sporadic support from a few kind people who want to help but it just has not been enough to get the house finished and, since Sher Dil does not have a source of income, the ability to support his family does not really exist. As a State Department condition for receiving a visa for his wife, he is forbidden to receive any kind of government assistance at any level. He is at the mercy of kind people who know what he did in the service of both of his countries; people like you.
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