Alabama man leading Afghan aid group

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (WSFA) - Over two months after the United States’ withdrawal from Afghanistan, there are still some helping both, Americans, and Afghans, trying to leave the country.

What started out as a few messages between friends is now a bipartisan effort to help those still left in Afghanistan leave.

“For my group alone, for Project Exodus Relief, we have about 800 Afghan SOF guys,” said Mike Edwards, founder of Project Exodus Relief, which is based in Alabama but consists of members across the country.

Afghan Special Operations Forces (SOF) work with the United States in the fight against terrorism.

“We left Afghanistan with the intent that we will still be able to deter terrorism from coming to our shores,” Edwards said. “The only way that’s possible is if we evacuate these Afghans SOF guys who have the capability to drive the intelligence to target those bad guys.”

Edwards says this makes them a target of the Taliban,

“The Taliban have a list of these people, and they’re just going around knocking on door to door to door trying to find them,” Edwards said. “And when they find them, they just execute them on site.”

And there is another threat approaching.

“Afghanistan has extremely harsh winters,” Edwards said. “It starts getting cold about this time of year and talking about snow and stuff, and with this shortage of food there’s going to be a massive starvation event in that country.”

Edward says they wanted to get more people out before then but the organization is in need of donations to help purchase flights, find housing and try to send food to help those who want to leave.

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