New America and The Intercept Announce “No Way Home” Podcast

New York, NY – The Intercept, in collaboration with New America, has published the first episode of its four-part podcast “No Way Home,” an original audio series developed, reported, and narrated by Afghans forced into exile when the Taliban took over in late 2021. In this series, three Afghan nationals directly impacted by last year’s events and two decades of broken promises in the U.S. war on terror have chosen which stories to share –– and worked on every aspect of this unprecedented documentary podcast.

“No Way Home” is the first product of a unique collaboration between The Intercept and the Future Frontlines and Fellows program at New America. Together, through the Afghanistan Observatory Initiative, we offered training and editorial support for seven extraordinary Afghan journalists, analysts, and human right defenders to undertake independent research and writing projects that chronicle last year’s forced migration and seek clarity about what led to the collapse of Afghan security forces.

“No Way Home” tells the stories of four Afghans who tried to leave when the U.S. military pulled out of Afghanistan last summer: a businessman with an activist daughter, a valued employee of a French environmental NGO, a cell-phone programmer determined to build a better life for his kids, and a finance officer for Jesuit Refugee Services who has become a refugee himself. Through these accounts, Afghan storytellers use their own experiences of departure, loss, and resilience to illuminate the dark end of America’s longest war.

In addition to the stories in this podcast, The Intercept will also publish feature articles by Afghanistan Observatory scholars about the collapse of the Afghan security forces and the evacuation and resettlement of elite Afghan fighters trained by the CIA. “No Way Home” and the feature stories produced in collaboration with the Afghanistan Observatory Initiative will be published by The Intercept under a single collection titled “Losing Afghanistan.”

“No Way Home” Podcast Episode Overview

Episode 1: Life and Death

When the U.S.-backed Afghan government dissolved last summer, Summia Tora, Afghanistan’s first Rhodes scholar, used her connections to get her father out. But when she tried to evacuate a longtime NGO worker named Hamid, his pregnant wife, and their young daughter, a suicide bomber intervened.

Episode 2: The Desert of Death

As the Taliban claimed territory last summer, Mir Abdullah Miri and his cousin Aziz both planned to flee their homes in Herat, a city in western Afghanistan. Mir, an educational researcher, made it to the Afghan capital and tried to get on a flight, while Aziz, a cellphone programmer, decided to cross into Iran on foot with his wife and two young children, hoping to reach relatives in Germany. After Aziz and his family set off through Afghanistan’s southern desert, Mir was left to untangle the mystery of what really happened to them in that desolate wilderness, where thousands of Afghans have risked their lives in search of a way out.

Episode 3: Born Again

Maryam Barak, an Afghan journalist, was evacuated to Italy with her family last summer. In Rome, she met Qader, another newly arrived Afghan who has found healing through helping other refugees find stability and community in an alien place.

Episode 4: Getting Out Alive

Marked as enemies of the new Taliban government by his work with Westerners and his family’s Hazara ethnicity, Hamid, his wife, their 8-year-old daughter, and their new baby move furtively from place to place, living under assumed names. Their year in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan echoes Hamid’s own war-riven childhood as he tries to guarantee his daughter’s future — just as Summia’s father did for her. Suddenly, an escape route opens: Will Hamid finally make it out?

About the Afghanistan Observatory Initiative

The seven scholars selected for the Afghanistan Observatory Initiative have a demonstrated commitment to peacebuilding, good governance, and the defense of human rights in Afghanistan. Through the course of the scholarship period, the cohort undertook independent research projects that aim to give voice to the millions of Afghans displaced by war and poverty.

The following individuals were selected for New America’s Afghanistan Observatory Initiative:

• Fahim Abed, a former reporter for the New York Times in Kabul;
• Maryam Barak, a former BBC producer and Salam Watandar radio reporter;
• Mir Abdullah Miri, a research consultant and qualitative researcher;
• Elyas Nawandish, the online chief editor of Kabul-based Etilaat Roz;
• Humaira Rahbin, a human rights researcher at the Center for Information Resilience;
• Qayoom Suroush, a researcher for the Center for Civilians in Conflict, Afghanistan Analysts Network, and the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit; and
• Summia Tora, Afghanistan’s first Rhodes Scholar and founder and executive director of Dosti Network.

“No Way Home” is a production of The Intercept and New America’s Afghanistan Observatory Initiative. The Afghanistan Observatory Initiative is funded by the Carnegie Corporation, the Open Society Foundations, and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. The Human Rights Investigations Lab at the UC Berkeley School of Law, The Intercept, and Bellingcat are training partners.