Canadian veteran helps Afghan interpreter and his family escape Taliban rule
CBC
This Remembrance Day, the first since Afghanistan fell to Taliban forces in the summer, will be difficult for Canadians who fought in the Middle Eastern country, says a veteran who served two missions there.
Stephen Peddle, a Canadian Forces retired major, has been working to get some families of Afghan interpreters to safety.
"Afghanistan and the Taliban have a brilliant intelligence network. They know who helped NATO and they know who helped the Canadians and the Americans," Peddle says.
"Their target list is very real, and they have a very savvy way of finding people who were fighting against them all these years."
In August, the Taliban overran the capital city of Kabul and seized control of Afghanistan. By the end of the month, the United States and its Western allies withdrew from the country.
Troops spent a harrowing two weeks protecting the airlift of tens of thousands of Americans, Canadians, Afghans and others trying to escape.
Peddle, who lives in St. Albert, Alta., northwest of Edmonton, says he knew the families of people he worked with in Afghanistan were in danger and he felt he had to help them get out.
The 47-year-old worked in intelligence for the Canadian military and was deployed to Afghanistan in 2007 and in 2012.
During his first mission, he was embedded with Afghan soldiers for six months. He became friends with his interpreter, Sangeen Abdul Mateen, who was about 20 years old at the time.
Peddle was able to help Mateen immigrate to Canada in 2012. The now 34-year-old lives in the Toronto area with his wife and four children. He studied to become an electrician and started his own company.
But many of Mateen's family members remained in Afghanistan, including his father, who was a high-level military officer.
Mateen says he became worried for their lives when there were signs the Taliban were going to take over Kabul.
He says the Taliban would cut off telecommunication networks at certain times of the day, so he spent weeks staying up all night to be able to speak with his family and co-ordinate an escape to Canada.
"Sometimes in the middle of the night, like 2 a.m. or 3 a.m., I would just have to send an email to Stephen and he would reply back within a minute," Mateen says.