Marines say CIA-trained Afghan units 'executed' civilians to clear Kabul airport, new doc reveals

Afghan special forces units trained by the CIA mowed down civilians with their cars and shot innocent people to clear the Kabul airport during the Biden administration’s chaotic U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, according to first-person accounts in a new documentary.

Eyewitnesses in the documentary for The Wall Street Journal, titled “The Path to Zero,” say atrocities were also perpetrated against U.S. military members at Kabul International Airport – in the closing hours of the administration's final withdrawal of U.S. forces. 

Multiple people say in the documentary that they witnessed the Afghan special forces, known as Zero Units, murder members of the crowd in a CIA-directed mission to clear the airport. Those who committed the murders were then rewarded with evacuation, courtesy of the U.S.

“They straight up executed people, ran them over,” retired U.S. Marine Corps Gunnery Sgt. Edward Gonzalez says in the film, telling the documentarians that he witnessed these atrocities firsthand. “I literally saw trucks running over people,” he said when told that some people have denied that such events occurred.

Josephy Laude, a retired sergeant with the U.S. Marine Corp, also described what the Zero Units did to clear out the airport.

“They would use vehicles, they would run people over, they would execute people," Laude says in the film. "They’d shoot them, shoot into the crowds bearing witness to atrocities, to war crimes.” 

Peter Vasely, a retired rear admiral with the U.S. Navy who served as the commander of U.S. Forces Afghanistan Forward at the time of the withdrawal, claimed in the documentary that “no reports” of the Zero Unit’s actions ever made it to him. He said he did not doubt what the Marines on the ground said, just that he never received any official reports of the conduct.

Gonzalez also said that had the Zero Units not taken the steps they took to clear the airport, he and his fellow Marines would not be alive today. Kenneth F. McKenzie, a retired Marine Corps general, also said that not only would the U.S. not have been able to clear the airport without the Zero Units, but they wouldn’t have been able to hold it either.

“They were vital to the success of our mission,” McKenzie said in the film.

The documentary alleges that to get the Zero Units to open fire on their own countrymen, the CIA had to promise that they and their entire families would be evacuated from Afghanistan. 

Of the 124,000 people evacuated from the region in August 2021, roughly 30,000 – almost one quarter – were the Zero Units and their families. Meanwhile, loyal Afghan allies, including thousands of interpreters, were left behind. 

“There’s no way to sugarcoat it: We abandoned you, because of poor decisions and poor execution,” Seth Krummich, retired U.S. Army colonel, said in the documentary.

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., best known for his congressional investigations into Obama-era scandals such as Operation Fast and Furious and the IRS’ targeting of conservative organizations, said during an interview on “Just the News, No Noise,” Wednesday night that the cover-up of the withdrawal will soon be revealed. U.S. Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, Sean Parnell, who is chairing the Afghanistan Withdrawal Review Panel, is working to release that information.

“I mean, the two great cover-ups in Abbey Gate obviously was the lead-up to that tragic loss of our military personnel and many other civilians around them, and then the incredibly inept withdrawal of bringing into our country people who shouldn't be, or leaving behind many who should be here, and the Trump administration is still cleaning up for that by finding people around the world who are entitled and who really have earned a right,” Issa said.

As an example, Issa pointed to a one-star general briefing members of Congress without anyone from the White House, and telling members that he was told to write down whatever an Afghan said about themselves and then hand them back the paper before letting them on an airplane.

“Obviously, that's why we got people in this country we shouldn't have, including terrorists,” he said. “But that became one of those things you couldn't verify again, even though members of Congress had heard it, because they said, ‘Oh, well, that was misunderstood. He wasn't really briefing when they landed in the United States. We did secondary work.’ I don't believe any of that was true, and I think that's just an example of the kind of thing where honesty was available, and they chose a cover-up instead.”

Former Deputy Chief of Staff to the Secretary of War, Darin Selnick, said on the same program that criminal referrals could be coming for those responsible for the withdrawal.

“But I think we have to be patient because it's going to maybe take another year to really dig these things out, do the right interviews, find the right people, get collaborative statements, and really find out, you know, with the criminal referrals, what was done that was done illegally, what was done that was immoral, and what's criminally referable,” Selnick said.

The Zero Units were trained, directed and paid by the CIA, though such efforts technically fell under the control of the Afghan intelligence agency, and fought the Taliban since its creation in 2008. 

As Pro Publica reported in 2023, just one Zero Unit conducted at least 107 raids and killed 452 civilians over a four-year period, including many based on faulty CIA intelligence. In some cases, U.S. special operations forces soldiers working with the CIA joined the raids with the Zero Unit.

On Nov. 26, 2025, one of the Zero Units who was brought to America shot two Army National Guard soldiers – Specialist Sarah Beckstrom, who died, and Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, who was seriously injured – in Washington, D.C. Two other Guardsman were also injured. Rahmanullah Lakanwal was charged on June 16 for the attack, the Department of Justice said in a press release at the time.

In December, members of the Zero Units told NPR that they feel abandoned after delays in their asylum requests since they arrived in the U.S. and have been unable to find work. Some have allegedly taken their own lives.