Washington, Aug 24
An Afghan singer who has used her international fame to amplify calls for women’s rights wore an all-enveloping veil to escape her homeland as the Taliban took Kabul.
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 August 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.
