A heavily-armed Taliban fighter stood eye to eye with Aman Khalili, suspiciously scrutinizing the former US forces interpreter who helped Joe Biden's 2008 rescue in a bleak snow-filled valley in Afghanistan.
As the fanatic flicked through mugshots on his cell phone, Khalili knew that if his face popped up, he was dead, and his wife Amina and five of their children traveling with him would probably be killed as well.
He was a hunted man who would be a trophy for the new regime that swept up the country in the wake of President Joe Biden's chaotic withdrawal.
But after a few terrifying seconds, the fighter moved on to another passenger on their bus which had been stopped at a Taliban checkpoint on its route from the city of Kandahar to blood-soaked Helmand Province.
Khalili, 51, slowly breathed in relief. Yet this was just one of the harrowing moments in the interpreter's incredible escape with his family from Afghanistan after appealing to President Biden: 'I helped you, I need your help.'
DailyMail.com can now reveal astonishing details of that journey - and the family's new life in Phoenix, Arizona, following their arrival in the United States on February 3 via Pakistan and Qatar.
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Aman Khalili, an Afghan interpreter who worked with US forces, managed to escape the Taliban in Afghanistan with his family following the withdrawal of American troops last August
Khalili and wife Amina, 45 - with children Hazera, 21, Faryal, 17, Sakhawat, 13, Ismail, 23, and Zulfar, 16, are now safely living in Phoenix, Arizona after reaching US soil on February 3
Khalili had helped rescue then-Senator Joe Biden (fourth from left), John Kerry (far right), and Chuck Hagel (left) after their helicopter made an emergency landing during a snow storm in Kunar Province in eastern Afghanistan on February 20, 2008
They endured months of switching between safe houses, perilous road journeys, and meetings using code words after going into hiding from their Kabul home following Biden's withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan last year.
'The Taliban would get on buses and search for people all the time at checkpoints,' Khalili told DailyMail.com at his new temporary home in a Phoenix suburb.
'One looked hard at me. He had a cell phone with one eye on the phone, obviously with pictures of people they wanted, and was looking at that and then at me. If he had recognized me from a photo, I'd have been dead.'
'That was very scary for me and my wife. I was terrified they had caught us and they would kill me. Or if not now, the next time. They would recognize me, because I was known due to the work I did as an interpreter.'
He added: 'Thankfully, the danger passed on that occasion and nobody asked me my identity as we traveled from Kandahar to Helmand.
'I began sitting close behind my wife because it is a custom in Afghanistan that when you are with a female, they will not ask you any questions.'
Khalili's escape story emerged after he appealed to Biden personally. The administration did not organize his escape, although they later became associated with it.
Ultimately the State Department stepped in with assistance after Arizona military veterans and non-profit group Human First Coalition – run by volunteers to evacuate Americans and other vulnerable people from Afghanistan - coordinated a route to Pakistan.
Khalili worked for US forces for 13 years, risking his life to help patrols and other missions to clear Taliban insurgents from valleys near Bagram air base.
He also served as a personal interpreter for General Dan McNeill, commander of the coalition forces in Afghanistan from 2002 to 2003.
Khalili started his career with the US forces by simply turning up at Bagram Air Base in 2001 and telling a soldier at the security barrier: 'I can help you.' He was taken on immediately.
The translator had urged President Joe Biden to help save his family after the Taliban seized control of Kabul last year with a desperate plea in the Wall St Journal saying: 'please do not forget me and my family'
Khalili and his family spent months dodging the Taliban and finally made it across the border into Pakistan in October. With intervention by top US officials after he was out of the country, he flew aboard military transport to Doha, say those who helped get him out
As the Taliban swept across Afghanistan last summer, Khalili was left behind when the last US troops left the country August 31. Pictured: Taliban members pose with firearms in the northern Balkh province
Khalili gained a reputation in the military for absolute calm as bullets flew all around him – and was reckoned to have been in more than 100 firefights despite never being allowed to carry a weapon.
And if his position was perilous before the US withdrawal, it became desperate as American forces pulled out of Kabul last August, leaving the Taliban an open door to the city.
'Kabul was terrible, everywhere there were gunmen on the streets. I was terrified they would find me and kill me,' he said.
'I worked for the US forces for many years and everyone knew me. I lived with the knowledge the Taliban could come to my house and that would be it.
'When the US withdrew, I went to the airport with my papers to see if we could get out. I was told someone might be able to help me there.
'But I stood there among the crowd for hours. People were rushing to try to get inside the airport. There was a lot of shooting.'
One day, Khalili spotted a man pointing at his house. 'This was very unnerving. Everyone who lived near me knew my work. And this man was pointing at my house. I couldn't see if he was speaking to anyone,' he said.
'But it was enough, the situation was hopeless. I took to the basement of my house and we went into hiding.'
Khalili had stayed in touch with a member of the Arizona National Guard, Brian Genthe, who facilitated his direct appeal to President Biden for help with a comment to the Wall Street Journal.
'Hello Mr. President: Save me and my family,' he said to the paper. 'Don’t forget me here.'
Brian Genthe, an Afghan war vet with the Arizona National Guard, assisted the effort to get the former interpreter out of the country
Genthe, now retired from the military, praised Khalil's bravery and said the US ally 'was the only interpreter we trusted to stick with us'
Genthe talks to Khalili's children outside the family's temporary housing near Phoenix
'I appealed to President Biden because I thought it was my last chance to get out of Afghanistan with my family,' Khalili told DailyMail.com.
'I called on the president, "please do not forget me and my family. I helped you, I need your help." Hopefully he ordered, directed – "get him out." I was sure, one day, I would get to the United States.'
A secretive operation to rescue the family swung into action. And Genthe, awarded the Purple Heart during a distinguished military career dating back to the Desert Storm
