After exhausting journeys that took them from Kabul to Qatar to European cities to U.S. military bases, Afghan families fleeing the Taliban alighted in Kentucky, in a small city well-versed in receiving refugees.
Bowling Green has welcomed waves of refugees over four decades, beginning with Cambodians in the 1980s and then Bosnians in the 1990s, plus Iraqis, Burmese, Rwandan and Congolese and others, who have helped make the city of 72,000 a diverse and economically thriving place.
Wazir Khan Zadran was a tribal leader who fought 20 years ago against the Haqqani network, a powerful faction within the Taliban. Although he more recently worked with a nongovernmental organization, he knew the Taliban would come for him.