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An Afghan couple claims that a U.S. Marine attorney abducted their baby using the chaos of the Biden administration's withdrawal from Afghanistan.

In September, the Afghan couple filed a federal lawsuit describing all the allegations.

It accuses U.S. Marine Corps attorney Captain Joshua Mast and his wife of false imprisonment, conspiracy, fraud, and assault. The identity of the family is shielded out of concern for their relatives back in Afghanistan.

The baby’s name is also shielded.  The Afghan couple gave the baby an Afghan name. The Masts renamed her.

Joshua and his wife Stephanie Mast insist they are the child's legal parents and “admirably” acted based on their Christian faith to save her.

Joshua’s brother Richard Mast, an attorney with the conservative Christian legal group Liberty Counsel, is asking a federal judge to dismiss the lawsuit. The Liberty group has distanced itself from the case.

The child is now 3 ½ years old. And there are at least four court cases and hundreds of pages of legal filings that track her life. The Associated Press (AP) has done an extensive investigation into the case. And according to the AP, they obtained many of the legal filings under the Freedom of Information Act.

The U.S. Department of Defense, Justice, and the State, are all involved in the legal dispute that began with the baby's injuries and the death of her biological parents.

Conflicting stories of the raid 

In Sept. 2019, the U.S. attacked a remote compound in Afghanistan.  

That month was later shown to be one of the deadliest months of over a decade of U.S. occupation. 110 civilians were killed in the first week of September.

In court documents, Mast claims that the U.S. government “sent helicopters full of special operators to capture or kill” a foreign fighter.

Mast also claims that rather than surrender, the man detonated a suicide vest. And five of the six children in the room were killed. He also claims the baby’s mother was shot to death resisting arrest.

Attorneys for the Afghan couple, Sehla Ashai and Maya Eckstein, say that Mast’s account is not accurate.

They claim the baby’s parents were farmers and had no terrorist affiliations. They describe the raid as a tragic event. And claim two innocent civilians and five of their children were killed by U.S. forces.

Baby pulled from the rubble

The baby girl was about 2 months old when she was discovered after the U.S. Special Forces raid. Her parents and five siblings were all killed. Mast was at the raid. 

U.S. troops pulled the badly wounded infant from the rubble. She had a skull fracture, a broken leg, and serious burns.

The baby spent 3-months in a U.S. military hospital.

The International Committee of the Red Cross and the Afghan government immediately started searching for the baby’s biological family. Due to poor record keeping in the rural area, they didn’t even know the baby’s name, at first.  

About six weeks after the baby was rescued, the U.S. Embassy called for a meeting, attended by representatives of the Red Cross, the Afghan government, and the American military, including Mast.

The State Department wanted to make sure everyone understood its position that, “Under international humanitarian law, the U.S. was obliged to do everything possible to reunite the baby with her next of kin.”

Afghan couple claim to be baby’s “bio” family 

About 3 months after she was pulled from the rubble the Red Cross said they’d found her family. She was then about five months old.

The couple is on record claiming that after her two-month stay in the hospital the baby has fully recovered from her injuries.

The baby went to live with her cousin and his wife.  Afghan officials informed the U.S. Embassy she would be raised by a cousin.  The newlywed couple was educated and lived in a city with access to hospitals.

The man worked in a medical office and ran a co-ed school. His wife was a high school graduate. And she and is fluent in English and two other languages. 

Unlike many, this Afghanistan couple married for love.

For the next year and a half, the baby was legally raised by the Afghan couple. They claim she was happy and loved. And they were never told when Mast was able to adopt her in the U.S.

See Part 2: Afghan couple claims baby illegally adopted by U.S. Marine