After more than a year of hiding from the Taliban, three Americans have returned to the country.

 After more than a year of hiding from the Taliban, three Americans have returned to the country.

For more than a year, they feared for their lives as they hid from the Taliban, but now three Americans are back on U.S. soil after a Tampa-based nonprofit helped rescue them. 

The rescue comes on the 1st anniversary of the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan.

A family member of one of the evacuees learned about Project Dynamo through a news report and was able to safely connect his family member with them. The operation was prepared for more than a month to make sure everything went according to plan.

"The women were crying when we landed. The women were crying. There's a lot of anticipation, stress and anxiety involved," said Bryan Stern, co-founder of Project Dynamo.

Eighty-three-year-old Rahima Sadaat, 72-year-old Noor Mohammad Ataie and his 59-year-old wife, Anisa Ataie, have all been hiding from the Taliban in Afghanistan for more than a year. 

Noor Mohammad and his wife originally traveled there in April 2021 to visit family for a few months, but became trapped after U.S. troops left and the Taliban took power. 

"The fear of death and waiting to be caught and dying. And that whole story is unfortunately very common," Stern said.

Family members in the U.S. were able to connect Sadaat and Mohammad and his wife with the Tampa-based nonprofit Project Dynamo, which spent a month planning the escape.

"The Taliban are everywhere. They are in control. So if you go through immigration at Kabul International Airport. You are dealing with a Taliban passport holder. And that can have disastrous consequences," Stern said.

On Monday, the three evacuees, along with Stern and his two-person team, flew from Kabul to the United Arab Emirates, landing at JFK Airport on Tuesday.

"It's a mousetrap. It's a multi-layered, multi-faceted mechanism to get people safely from where they are to where they need to be," Stern explained.

Since returning, Stern is already receiving calls from people who need help. In the past year, they have conducted more than 100 missions to rescue Americans from Afghanistan and have no plans to stop anytime soon.

"This is the best work I have done in my career. There's nothing I'd rather be doing and no place I'd rather be," Stern said.

All three evacuees are U.S. residents. Sadaat will return to her home in Virginia. Mohammad and his wife will go back to their home in Sacramento.