Marine fights to maintain custody of adopted girl saved by Army Rangers from Afghan battlefield

A Marine and his family are fighting to maintain custody of their adopted five-year-old daughter, who was saved by Army Rangers from an Afghan battlefield in 2019.

Marine Corps Major Joshua Mast and his wife Stephanie are embroiled in both federal and state lawsuits over their adopted daughter, five-year-old “Baby L.,” as she has been called in court filings.

An Afghan Pashtun couple claiming to be related to Baby L. are suing the Masts for custody of the child in state court and filed another lawsuit over tortious interference with parental rights, fraud, common law conspiracy, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and false imprisonment in federal court. The Afghan couple are referred to as “John Doe” and “Jane Doe” in the federal lawsuit.

Found near her mother, an Al Qaeda fighter who died wearing suicide vest.

Baby L. was saved after a U.S. Special Forces operation was conducted in Afghanistan on Sept. 5-6, 2019, against Al Qaeda foreign fighters, according to an unclassified military report. Despite the Army Rangers allowing the foreign fighters to surrender, only one of them surrendered and was detained. The other foreign fighters fired on the Army Rangers and were killed during the firefight.

Baby L. was less than two months old when Army Rangers found her by her mother, who was one of the Al Qaeda foreign fighters and died from her wounds after setting off a suicide vest she was wearing.

“This infant was assessed to be the daughter of the female fighter and one of the barricaded shooters whose suicide vest had detonated, due to the proximity and layout of the [compound],” per the military report.

Baby L. “suffered a fragmentation wound to the lower extremity which had fractured her hip, and she sustained a fractured skull and 2nd degree burns,” the report added.

Unlike Afghan Pashtuns, Baby L. “is most likely ethnically Turkmen or a Uighur from Turkmenistan,” according to the report.

A former Army Ranger who was part of the Special Forces operation where Baby L. was found told CBS News in January 2023 that the Afghan partner forces “wanted me to throw the baby into the river 'cause they believed she was a terrorist." Instead, he and six other Army Rangers told the media outlet that they used scraps and medical equipment to make a car seat for the infant and took her to Craig Joint Theatre Hospital at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan.

"Fought for the child’s rights to safety"

Baby L. stayed at the hospital for about five months, according to a court filing from last August by Mast’s brother, Richard, in the federal court case. Richard Mast has been representing his brother in the state court case, and is a defendant along with the Masts in the federal case.

However, Mast learned about Baby L.’s situation and “grew concerned that Baby Doe, a foreign female infant in Afghanistan being treated in a Military Hospital under consistent rocket attack, would not have access to the medical care required to treat her injuries.”

Mast, who was in Afghanistan at the time, “fought for the child’s rights to safety, medical treatment, and to not be turned over by the US to non-relatives in an objectively dangerous manner” his lawyers said.

He and the DOD “demanded at a minimum a DNA test for any claimants and vetting for terrorist ties. The DoD was well aware [of] the risk that unrelated Taliban proxies would step forth as ‘uncles’ to try to claim the child.” At least six Afghans claimed to be family members of Baby L., but DNA tests proved otherwise.

With his command’s knowledge, Mast worked with a Virginia court, the Virginia Department of Health, and the Virginia attorney general’s office to obtain a birth certificate for Baby L. and an Interlocutory Order of Adoption so she could be brought to the U.S., per the court filing.

However, the Taliban would not give permission for Baby L. to go to the U.S., after a request from the father of John Doe, who has claimed to be Baby L.'s uncle.

“John Doe admitted that his father was responsible to the Taliban for the child, and that the Taliban had denied permission for the child to go to America prior to the start of the historical evacuation,” according to the filing. “In addition, it is appalling that U.S. Embassy Kabul would fail to keep a U.S. Forces, Afghanistan (USFOR-A) commitment to DNA test any claimant when the former Afghan government expressly requested it.”

Disobeying the Taliban

After the State Department became involved in the situation, Baby L. was transferred from DOD custody to John Doe’s father in February 2020. The Masts continued with the adoption process of Baby L.

“The Does were fully aware of the Masts’ intention and manifested belief that it was in the child’s best interest to live with the Masts,” according to Richard Mast’s court filing.

Richard Mast also argues in his answer to the Does’ federal lawsuit that the Afghan family had never met Baby L. before Feb. 27, 2020. They also “never sought or obtained an Afghan court order in their favor as parents, adoptive parents, guardian, or custodian” and “never provided a DNA sample from John Doe,” according to the court filing.

The Does disobeyed the Taliban, leading Mast to help evacuate them along with Baby L. from Afghanistan to Germany on the way to the U.S. Baby L. remained with the Does as they traveled to the U.S., where they arrived at Dulles International Airport on August 29, 2021. “John Doe was identified on the unclassified Biometrically Enabled [Terror] Watchlist (BEWL) upon his entry to the United States for a 2014 arms/explosives use,” according to the filing.

As a result, the Masts, who have four sons, were given custody of Baby L. on Sept. 3, 2021.

The Does, who live in Texas, sued the Masts for custody of Baby L. with the help of “Gitmo Bar, attorneys who love to fill out their ‘pro bono’ time by representing jihadists and attacking our armed forces and Christians,” according to the American Freedom Law Center, which is representing Richard Mast.

The couple claims that they didn’t know the Masts were adopting Baby L.

“After they took her, our tears never stop,” Jane Doe told The Associated Press in October 2022. “Right now, we are just dead bodies. Our hearts are broken. We have no plans for a future without her. Food has no taste and sleep gives us no rest.”

A gag order has been in place for the state case for about two years, preventing all parties in the lawsuit from discussing it.

In judicial limbo

In July, a Virginia appellate court voided the Masts’ adoption of Baby L. However, the Masts appealed the decision to the Virginia Supreme Court, and Baby L. has remained in their custody as the case continues. For it's part, the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ Project ANAR led a letter in June 2023 calling for an investigation into Mast.

Regarding the lawsuits over Baby L., Mast told CBS News ahead of the gag order, "Her everything is at stake. We're gonna continue to defend her like we would do with any of our other children." 

In October 2022, the Taliban posted a video alleging that Mast "forcefully" took Baby L., vowing to "seriously pursue" the issue with "American authorities" so the child is "returned to her relatives," according to CBS News’ translation.

"I think when the Taliban calls you out by name, and agrees with your opponents about what should happen to this little girl, that's the point we're gonna start fighting back," Mast told the media outlet.

Last October, allegations were made that the Masts stole “an Afghan baby girl from the battlefield” and adopted her – despite knowing she has blood relatives able to care for her after the death of her innocent villager parents. An administrative Marine Corps Board of Inquiry (BOI) found those allegations to be false.

The BOI rejected the serious allegations against Mast of making “false official statements,” a “‘substandard performance of duty’ (for failing to demonstrate leadership),” and failing to obey general orders.

The board “‘substantiated’ a technical violation of Article 123 (“misuse of a government computer”) for the Marine maintaining mission documents on his classified government computer from his 2019 deployment in Afghanistan and from his time at the Marine Forces Special Operations Command.” As a result, “the BOI also ‘substantiated’ the tack-on of Article 133 ‘conduct unbecoming an officer.’”

The BOI has allowed Mast to remain on active duty.

Lawyers for the Masts and the Does didn’t respond to requests for comment by publishing time.