Abdul Rahman Waziri, a 31-year-old dad of two, was shot dead following an argument over parking at his Houston, Texas apartment complex last month after surviving years of disarming IEDs and fierce firefights against terrorists in Afghanistan before moving to the US with his family as refugees in 2021.
“Abdul Rahman was literally willing to lay down his life for us – for us, for Americans,” Green Beret Ben Hoffman told The Post. “He was a lion. He was a warrior. He was a hero.”
That’s why Hoffman said he and others in the military who served with Waziri, an alum of the elite Afghan National Mine Removal Group, are dismayed by how he was killed and outraged at the lack of justice in the wake of his senseless death.
The deadly fight over the parking spot ended when the shooter walked away, only to go to his car to get his gun, Waziri’s family lawyer, Omar Khawaja, said, citing witnesses.
Waziri put his hands up and uttered his last words: “Please, don’t shoot” before he was shot multiple times, according to the lawyer.
Security camera footage obtained by the Post shows the alleged killer strolling away from the shooting, holding a bag of McDonald’s.
Houston police have not made any arrests in the killing after the Harris County District Attorney declined to charge the shooter, who had called 911 and reportedly confessed.
Cops said Monday that the investigation is ongoing while the gunman remains free and is back living in the apartment complex.
“We are hopeful that the right decision is made here,” Khawaja said about the possibility of charges being brought in the incident.
The suspect, who was not identified by officials, called police and turned himself in. He was questioned and then let go — outraging family and the members of the small but growing Afghan community in Houston, many of them soldiers like Waziri who fought with US special forces.
“To see a guy like that, a lion of a man, a man among men, to go to Houston of all places and get gunned down for no reason, it infuriates me,” Hoffman said. “If he were going to get gunned down in Logar Province, it may have been different. You want to kill one of our dudes? It would be a hunt-kill mission until we found the guy who did it.”
As angry as he is, Hoffman said he would never consider taking revenge.
“It’s not what Abdul Rahman would want,” he said. “He was a peacemaker. He was a warrior, but he wanted to bring peace,” he added.
As angry as he is, Hoffman said he would never consider taking revenge.
Another member of the Army who fought side by side with Waziri agreed.
“They were us. Without them, we were nothing,” said Jay, a combat engineer who worked closely with Waziri and other Afghan nationals. “They were one of us. They were our brothers.”
Jay, who declined to use his name out of safety concerns, said he can’t wrap his head around the irony that Waziri fled the notoriously brutal Taliban in his home country only to get gunned down in the streets of Houston — where his death wasn’t given a second thought.
“It doesn’t make any sense. This guy needs justice, I don’t know how else to say it. It needs to be told to the f–king world, it’s really bad. If I went back to Afghanistan tomorrow, I would take Mr. Waziri with me, man.”
Abdullah Khan, Waziri’s biological brother, was also a member of the mine removal team.
“We were doing serious missions, we went to some spicy places with Americans, we were fighting the Taliban, but ISIS too,” he said.
He said in the chaos of the US withdrawal from Kabul in August 2021, Waziri had to leave his wife and newborn baby behind. His flight to the US took off just two hours before a suicide bomber blew himself up in the Kabul airport.