The Backstory: How a Navy officer, a Ukrainian colonel and a USA TODAY reporter helped an Afghan journalist escape Kabul

Fatema Hosseini faced gunfire, tear gas, whipping and assault to win her freedom. Today she tells her story.

None of us slept the night of Aug. 19. 

There were four USA TODAY editors and a reporter on a WhatsApp chat with Afghan journalist Fatema Hosseini, U.S. Navy Reserve Lt. Alex Cornell du Houx and Ukrainian military commander Iryna Andrukh…