A Soledad woman keeps fighting to free her husband from the Taliban.

Zulhija Khan is, among other things, a physician and the mother of a toddler. In keeping with her Pashtun tradition, the Pakistan native had an arranged marriage to her husband, Mahmood Habibi, who is originally from Afghanistan. He excelled in his career, rising to run the equivalent of the FAA as Afghanistan’s director of civil aviation, based in Kabul.

“He was happy there,” Khan says. “I was very happy with my work and my life. We never planned to leave the country.”

But their plans would have to change. After the American withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Taliban takeover in 2021, they decided to visit family members in the United States until things settled out. Phase one of their journey, with a then-9-month-old daughter, was to a refugee camp in Qatar. Khan, the baby, and Habibi’s parents were waiting for visas to be processed; Habibi was already a U.S. citizen thanks to the Special Immigrant Visa program for Afghan and Iraqi nationals who worked with the U.S. He left the camp in Qatar after two months while the rest of the family remained behind.

Habibi had already transitioned into the private sector, working for the Virginia-based telecommunications company Asia Consultancy Group, providing services like radar and air traffic control systems in Afghan airports. His job took him back to Kabul while his parents, his wife and his baby daughter were still waiting in Qatar. Habibi planned to join his siblings in New Jersey while the rest of the family’s visas were processed.

But on Aug. 10, 2022, while Habibi was in Afghanistan for work, he – along with 30 other ACG employees – were arrested by the Taliban’s General Directorate of Intelligence. In the following days, 29 of them were released; three years later, Habibi and one other person (not an American citizen) still remain in Taliban custody.

Advocating for his return has become something of a full-time job for Khan, who now lives in Soledad with her nearly 4-year-old daughter and her parents, who immigrated from Pakistan in 2019. “Life has been very challenging for me,” she says. “I am a single parent and single parenting is a tough job.”

Khan began studying to pursue an American medical license, but finds she is too distracted by her advocacy efforts to bring her husband home.

“We want him back in our life.”

Their daughter, Khan adds, wants to get to know her father, who disappeared into Taliban custody when she was just a baby. “She is now at an age where she asks about her father every single day, why he isn’t coming back to us,” Khan says. “She cannot understand the situation.”

It’s not easy to understand how a family got caught up in this international standoff.

Now Khan and one of Habibi’s older brothers, Ahmad Habibi of New Jersey, participate in weekly calls with U.S. State Department and FBI officials. (Those agencies announced up to a $5 million reward for information.)

They are in contact with elected officials in Washington. U.S. Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose, and Sen. Cory Booker, D-New Jersey, have taken up the cause, urging for action to secure Habibi’s release. (Lofgren brought his father, Ahmadullah Habibi, as her guest to the State of the Union address last year.)

Ahmad recently met with Sebastian Gorka of the National Security Council. He is hopeful the Trump administration will advance things beyond what the Biden administration did, which Ahmad describes as essentially asking nicely.

But the family’s frustration stems largely from observing CIA cooperation with the Taliban. Recent reporting by Reuters explains how Habibi was detained 10 days after a CIA strike that killed al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri – an operation the CIA achieved thanks to penetrating an ACG cell tower. (Habibi was in the UAE at the time of that strike.)

And in an interview recorded by the Heritage Foundation on Aug. 21, Gorka said, “This sounds strange coming out of my mouth, but the Taliban have been moderately cooperative counterterrorism partners.” It does sound strange – and disturbing.

Hopefully for Habibi, and for his family here in Soledad, American leaders can find a solution, even if the CIA is cultivating a partnership with the Taliban. Habibi and his family deserve one.

“Mahmood is a very kind person,” Khan says. “We want him back in our life. He is in our minds every single day.”

SARA RUBIN is the Weekly’s editor. Reach her at sara@montereycountynow.com or follow her at @sarahayleyrubin.bsky.social.