economy. as locals take in the charred remains of their livelihoods, the hope is they can build back. but the worry is that this is the new normal. two years ago, the taliban were closing in on kabul and the western backed government was collapsing. the airlift followed, and since then, thousands more afghans have managed to get to the uk, including many who worked with the british military and intelligence agencies. there are nearly 9,000 afghans living in hotels, but as the government tried to shift them, for a variety of reasons, many afghans have found it impossible to get into the rental sector. they can be left with no choice but to join the homeless list. joining us now are amir hussain ibrahimi, who s 2a, and got to the uk just after the taliban takeover.
spent two months in kabul, and you see the taliban in this documentary, in a way they ve never been seen before, never been interviewed before. they speak very frankly, they speak in a relaxed way, i guess. so, it gets an unusual portrayal of the taliban. you really see them as they are. they are frank. you also get two different marines. the marines are proud of what they did in this evacuation operation. really, they told it like it was. so, you get frank accounts from the marines. we really wanted to give our audience a sense of what it was like to be in the center of this catastrophic evacuation. what surprised you, and your director, as you both made this documentary? as you mentioned, you spoke with taliban leaders, he spoke of marines. what did you learn, that may have surprised to, that we will learn about in this documentary?
obviously, it is not a success. we knew you were there to evacuate afghans, and u.s. citizens. it may sound like, it will be quick, it will be simple, we will be in, we will be out. but that didn t happen here. that was another moment from the new hbo documentary, escape from kabul, taking us inside of the final days of the u.s. withdrawal from afghanistan. the executive producer of that documentary, dan, rejoins me now. dan, great to have you with us, thank you so much for joining us. before we get to your new documentary, i want to get your reaction to the news i alluded to earlier, about the prisoner swap. what did you make of that announcement by this administration?
in the final weeks of that withdrawal, there are a lot of questions about what happened, but it is now the subject of a brand-new hbo documentary, escape from kabul. it goes inside the traumatic, and harrowing last days of the u.s. occupation there, as troops try to evacuate thousands of afghans, who fear for their lives, under taliban rule. pushback, pushback! you need to backup! stop asking the marines, back up. you need to get in order. this is not going to work. once we got to those gates, we could not accept people yet, because we didn t have the tactics available to be able to work the gates. we had people in place we, need a depth in place to protect the gate. we were checking on our positions, dug in, in case we took fire from the taliban again. after the break, i m joined
what was surprising was the suddenness, and seemingly unexpected nature of the taliban advance on kabul. kabul fell so quickly, no one seemed to anticipate it. therefore, this long withdrawal process, getting the at-risk afghans out, which america, and all of its allies, seems to have assumed would take that would take a couple of months, they were able to do in a matter of days. it was a radical for shortening of the time we had to get people out, and just how chaotic, and extreme it was. with how close it came to being a complete disaster. i think that is what, really, surprised us. of course, there was the tragic