It was already October when Taliban members stopped Abdul Sami Fayzi’s car at a checkpoint in Kabul. The martial artist had stuck a photo of himself behind the windshield until just a few weeks earlier in Afghanistan. “I was a folk hero,” says Fayzi in a conversation over Skype from Abu Dhabi, “then August 15 came.” After the Taliban invaded the Afghan capital, they no longer tolerated other heroes alongside them. “We are now the only champions in this country, we have defeated America,” said a bearded man at the checkpoint, threatening Abdul Sami Fayzi: “Your tattoos are haramdon’t let yourself be seen on the street with it.”
12,000 Afghans are stuck in Abu Dhabi, many with no prospects – politics
