FOX News congressional correspondent Aishah Hasnie said Thursday that Afghan civilians told her they were "waiting on their death sentence" after the Taliban took over Afghanistan amid the United States' evacuation from the region.
Hasnie said that the people of Afghanistan were preparing for new order under the Taliban by stockpiling on necessary supples such as food and phone cards that are needed to communicate with outsiders while they essentially go into a lockdown as they wait on the U.S. for help.
"Every single hour, every single day, means life or death for these people," Hasnie said during an interview on "America Reports."
"I have three good friends and … each of their families are in hiding right now, essentially, as they put it, waiting for their death sentence," she continued.
"A few days ago, one of my friends’ relatives was shot out on the street on his way to work," Hasnie said. "He worked for the Afghani government. [Another] girlfriend’s family actually tried to escape last week via a car, they were trying to cross into Kazakhstan, and they were stopped at the border and told to turn around and go home."
She also said that people turned to burning books, papers or anything they could find to connect them to the U.S. or the Afghan military.
Hasnie also pointed out that the Taliban has also gained control of the Afgan's biometric system which had been developed by the United States to identify individuals using fingerprint recognition.
"That’s why we can’t put names and put pictures on TV right now, because they could easily be found, she noted.
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Hasnie then spoke on the difficulty journey Afghans must take if they wish to arrive at the airport in Kabul in order to escape their country and its new leaders.
"One of my friends is a former translator for the U.S. military," Hasnie said. "He’s got two brothers in Afghanistan right now who are essentially trapped right now in Kabul. One is with his four kids and his wife, and he’s sitting in a home basically trying to hide out until he gets approval to come to the airport."
"But once he gets the approval, the question is, how does he physically take his family to the airport? Because there are Taliban checkpoints," she continued. "One of my girlfriends said there is absolutely no way to cross into any of the neighboring countries. The only possible way could be to go through the mountains, but the Taliban are hiding there as well."
The Taliban also has control of Afghanistan's internet access, meaning that the terror group has the ability to shut down the only way that Afghans are able to communicate with their loved ones in the U.S., Hasnie noted.
The crisis in Afghanistan hit very close home for Hasnie, who immigrated to the U.S. from Pakistan as a child, as she had a personal experience with the Taliban just five years ago.
The Taliban's Easter Sunday bombing of her home town of Lahore, Pakistan showed that, as Hasnie highlighted during Thursday's interview, the terror group is "not an Afghanistan problem."
"I was there in 2016 in Lahore when the Pakistani Taliban set off that Easter bomb," she said. "It happened right next to my grandmother’s home in a park that I have frequented, where I’ve gone to picnics with my family. I was on my way to the airport. I had no cell service, and for about six or seven hours, I had no idea if my mother and father were alive. It is terrifying and that’s their motive. They want people to be terrified."
The March 27, 2016 attack killed 75 people and injured hundreds more when a bomb packed with ball bearings exploded by the Lahore park Hasnie referred to. Pakistani Taliban group Jamaat-ul-Ahrar said they carried out the attack. And while the group intended to target Christians celebrating Easter, the majority of the victims were muslims.
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