Elite Afghan soldiers turn barbers, gym trainers in India to escape Taliban

Trading guns for hair clippers and dumbbells, they’ve had to desert their dreams, as their government deserted them.

New Delhi, India – It is almost 5:40 in the evening. A hair salon in New Delhi’s bustling New Friends Colony neighbourhood is alive with the sound of buzzing clippers and chattering customers. The air is thick with the scent of hair spray and aftershave.

Zaki Marzai, 29, stands behind a barber’s brown chair, his hands moving with precision as he snips a customer’s hair.

Wooden shelves on the walls bear colourful bottles of shampoo and styling products. The mirrors reflect Marzai, his eyes focused on the hair before him. His customer looks satisfied.

Marzai, though, would rather be elsewhere – with a rifle in his hand, not a razor.

Three years ago, Marzai was a soldier in the elite special force of Afghanistan’s army, fighting the Taliban in a war that started with the United States and NATO forces invading the country in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. The Western-backed Afghan government had sided with the US in the 20-year war. Marzai joined the army in 2015 as a sergeant and was on track to become a commissioned officer.

Everything changed on June 20, 2018.

At about 2am that day, Marzai was stationed outside a camp in Ghazni province of Afghanistan when a barrage of bullets hit him and his fellow soldiers.

Before Marzai and his comrades could realise what happened, 25 soldiers had died on the spot and six others had been injured. Bullets had pierced through Marzai’s chin and right leg.

“The attack was so intense we couldn’t do anything. The bullets were coming from all four sides. We were sitting ducks. The Taliban wiped out the entire camp,” he recalls. According to the United States Institute of