Inside the Islamic Emirate

David Rohde and two Afghan colleagues were kidnapped last November asthey traveled to an interview with Abu Tayyeb, above, a Talibancommander.

By DAVID ROHDE

It was some sort of prank, I hoped, some jihadi version of chicken —the game where two drivers speed toward each other in the same laneuntil one loses his nerve.

Which lane he drove down showed what country we were in. If he continued driving on the left, we had crossed into Pakistan. If he drove on the right, we were still in Afghanistan.

A mile down the road, traffic signs appeared in Urdu.

We’re in Pakistan, I thought to myself. We’re dead.

Eightdays earlier, a Taliban faction had kidnapped me along with an Afghanjournalist, Tahir Luddin, and our driver, Asad Mangal, during areporting trip just outside Kabul. The faction’s commander, a man whocalled himself Atiqullah, had lied to us. He had said we were beingmoved to southern Afghanistan and would be freed.

Instead, onNov. 18, we arrived in Pakistan’s tribal areas, an isolated belt ofTaliban-controlled territory. We were now in “the Islamic emirate” —the fundamentalist state that existed in Afghanistan before the 2001American-led invasion. The loss of thousands of Afghan, Pakistani andAmerican lives and billions in American aid had merely moved it a fewmiles east, not eliminated it.

Through seven years of reportingin the region, I had pitied captives imprisoned here. It was arguablythe worst place on earth to be an American hostage. The United Statesgovernment had virtually no influence and was utterly despised.

Since2004, dozens of missiles fired by American drones had killed hundredsof militants and civilians. The Taliban had held Afghan, Pakistani andforeign hostages in the area for years, trading lives for ransom andexecutions for publicity.

“We’re in Pakistan,” I said out loud in the car, venting my anger.

Atiqullah laughed, and the driver appeared surprised.

“How does he know it’s Pakistan?” the driver asked.

“Because you’re driving down the left-hand side of the road,” I answered.

“How do you know that?” he asked. “When were you in Pakistan before?”

Atiqullah smiled and appeared amused by the conversation. He knew I had been to Pakistan many times on reporting trips.

I was one of dozens of journalists who had written articles detailing how Al Qaedaand the Taliban had turned the tribal areas into their new strongholdafter being driven from Afghanistan in 2001. I had watched thePakistani government, then led by President Pervez Musharraf, largely stand by as the Taliban murdered tribal elders and seized control of the area.

Now, an abstract foreign policy issue was deeply personal. When my wifeand family learned that I was in the tribal areas, their distress wouldincrease exponentially. They would expect that I would never return.

Wearrived in a large town, and I spotted a sign that said “Wana” inEnglish. Wana is the capital of South Waziristan, the most radical areaof the seven administrative districts that make up the tribal areas. Westopped in the main bazaar, and I was left alone in the car with theyoung driver.

Desperate rationalizations swirled through mymind. Our captors wanted a ransom and prisoners. Killing us got themnothing. The three of us would survive. They were all delusions, ofcourse. Simply getting us this far was an enormous victory for them. Wewould be held here for months or killed.

Outside the car, dozensof Pakistani tribesmen and Afghan and foreign militants milled around.Each carried a Kalashnikov assault rifle on his shoulder and had along, thick beard.

A man with a large turban stopped, peered atme in the back seat and asked the driver a question in Pashto. Thedriver looked at me and said a sentence that I thought included theword for martyr. I told myself the driver had said I was on my way toheaven.

Atiqullah got back into the car, and I felt relief. Hehad kidnapped us, but more and more I desperately viewed Atiqullah asmy protector, the man who would continue to treat us well as othermilitants called for our heads.

OUR first Pakistani home was inMiram Shah, the capital of North Waziristan. Two large sleeping roomslooked out on a small courtyard. One even had a small washroom,separate from the toilet, for showering.

On the first daythere, I went to the bathroom and returned to find Tahir with a freshcut on his calf. It looked as if someone had drawn a line across hisleg in red ink. A local Waziri militant had taken out his knife andtried to cut off a chunk of Tahir’s calf, saying he wanted to eat theflesh of an Afghan who worked with Westerners. One of Atiqullah’sguards had stopped him.

All day, a parade of random Pakistanimilitants stopped by the house to stare at us. I felt like an animal ina zoo. Among them was a local Taliban commander who introduced himselfas Badruddin. He was the brother of Sirajuddin Haqqani, who led the Haqqani network, one of the most powerful Taliban factions in the region. Miram Shah was its stronghold.

Their father was Jalaluddin Haqqani,an Afghan mujahedeen leader whom the United States and Pakistan backedin the 1980s when he battled the Soviets. In the 1990s, the UnitedStates ended its relationship with the Haqqanis and many otherhard-line Afghan fighters. With Pakistan’s help, the Taliban movementemerged and the Haqqanis joined them.

Badruddin, a tall,talkative man who appeared to be in his early 30s, said he waspreparing to make a video of us to release to the media. He smiled ashe showed me a video on his camera of a French aid worker, DanyEgreteau, who had been kidnapped a week before us as he walked to hisoffice in Kabul. He was in chains and appeared to have welts on hisface. He implored his family and friends to save him.

“It’s a nightmare,” he said. “I really beg you to pay.”

Iasked if Tahir and I could speak alone with Atiqullah, and I told himwe should not make the video. The American and Afghan governments weremore likely to agree to a secret prisoner exchange, I said, than apublic one.

Trying to reduce their expectations, I told him itwould be far easier to get prisoners from the main Afghan-run prisonoutside Kabul, known as Pul-i-Charkhi. If the Taliban demandedprisoners from the American-run detention centers at Guantánamo Bay,Cuba, and Bagram, Afghanistan, they would never succeed.

I was not worth that much, I told him, and he should compromise. I didnot say it, but I also wanted to spare my family the pain of seeing mein a video. To my surprise, Atiqullah agreed.

“I am one of those kinds of people,” he said at one point. “I am one of those people who like to meet in the middle.”

Tahir, Asad and I would be allowed to call our families that night toprove we were alive, he said. Atiqullah told me to emphasize during thecall that he wanted to reach a deal quickly. He continued to cover hisface with a scarf. To me, that meant he did not want to be identifiedbecause he planned to release us.

I spent the rest of the daynervously scribbling a list of things I wanted to say to my wife,Kristen, whom I had married just two months earlier. I added items andthen crossed them out. I wanted to ease my family’s fears that I wasbeing tortured, but I also wanted to do everything possible to free thethree of us. I wasn’t sure I would have another chance to speak withher.

LATE that night, Atiqullah and Badruddin drove us out oftown. Atiqullah stopped the car in a dry riverbed and turned off theengine. He left the headlights on, and we used them to see the numberpad on a small satellite phone. Atiqullah and Badruddin ordered me totell Kristen that we were being held in terrible conditions in themountains of Afghanistan. I dialed my wife’s number.

“Hello?” she said.

“Kristen?” I said. “Kristen?”

“David,” she said, “it’s Kristen. I love you.”

She sounded calm.

“Kristen?” I asked.

“Yes?” she said.

“I love you, too,” I said. “Write these things down, O.K.?”

“O.K.,” she said.

She sounded remarkably composed.

“I’m, we are being treated well,” I said.

“Being treated well,” Kristen repeated.

“No. 1,” I said.

“Uh-huh, No. 1,” Kristen said.

“No.2,” I said. “Deal for all three of us, all three of us, not just me.The driver and the translator also; it has to be a deal for all threeof us.”

“Deal for all three of us,” she repeated. “The driver and the translator as well. O.K.”

“Do not use force to try to get us,” I said.

“Do not use force,” Kristen repeated.

“Four,” I said.

“Yes,” Kristen said.

“Make a deal now or they will make it public,” I said. “They want to put a video out to the media.”

Kristen repeated my words back to me.

“It will make it a big political problem,” I said.

Atiqullah told me to tell her that this was my last call.

“They said I can’t call you again,” I said. “They want a deal now and I can’t call you again.”

“You cannot call me again,” she repeated. “I love you. I love you, honey.”

“I love you, too,” I said. “Tell my family I’m sorry.”

“Your family is here, Lee’s here with me,” she said, referring to my older brother.

“I’m sorry,” I said, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s going to be all right,” Kristen said calmly. “I love you. I am praying for you every day.”

Kristen said she wanted to make sure she understood what the Taliban wanted.

“What is the deal?” she asked.

Atiqullah told me to tell her that he would call The New York Times’sKabul bureau with demands. “We are very concerned about you,” Kristensaid. “And we love you, and we’re praying for you.”

The satellite phone beeped and abruptly went dead. Kristen was gone.

STANDINGin the remote darkness of Waziristan at the mercy of Taliban militants,I felt at peace. I had spoken to my wife for the first time in ninedays. I had expected panic or tears, but she sounded collected andconfident. Her words “It’s going to be all right” would linger in mymind for months. Her composure would sustain me.

Atiqullah andBadruddin then told me to call The Times’s bureau in Kabul. But insteadof ordering me to make specific demands, they instructed all three ofus to exaggerate our suffering.

“We are in terribleconditions, Tahir is very sick,” I told Chris Chivers, a close friendand Times reporter, who answered the phone. I was ordered to tell Christhat Atiqullah was not with us — even though he was, in fact, standingbeside me.

Tahir then spoke to Chris and asked him to tell his family he was alive and in good health.

“They keep telling me that if things go wrong they will repeat thestory of Helmand,” Tahir said, “so I am just afraid they are going tokill me.”

Tahir was referring to the 2007 kidnapping of anItalian journalist in Helmand Province that ended in the beheadings ofan Afghan journalist and a driver working with him.

Asad then spoke with an Afghan reporter in the bureau.

“I am fine, I am O.K.,” he said. “Tell my family that we are in the mountains but we are O.K.”

Theconversation dragged on, with Atiqullah continuing to direct me aboutwhat to say. When he ordered me to tell Chris that they would kill thedriver and translator first, I refused.

“Kill me first,” I told Atiqullah, “Kill me first.”

Chris overheard me and interrupted. “Nobody needs that, David,” he said. “Nobody needs to die.”

“Theyare threatening to kill the driver and the translator,” I explained toChris. “I have to tell you, I have to tell you. I don’t want to tellyou.”

“We understand that they are making those threats,” Chris said, “but that will not make our job easier.”

Chris said that if the Taliban killed anyone it would make government officials angry and make any deal even more difficult.

“Please don’t let them kill the driver and the translator,” I said. “Please don’t let them kill the driver and translator.”

“I am sorry about this,” I added. “I apologize to everyone.”

“David, this is not your fault,” Chris said. He urged me to tell Atiqullah to keep calling.

“O.K.,all three of us, Chris,” I said as Badruddin and Atiqullah ordered meto end the call. “It’s gotta be all three of us. I gotta go.”

ASAtiqullah drove us back into Miram Shah, I felt relief. Kristen hadsounded calm. Chris had said The Times was doing all it could. I felt Ihad fought for Tahir and Asad.

We arrived at a new house, and Iwas again surprised by the good conditions. It had regular electricity,and we could wash ourselves with buckets of warm water. I received anew set of clothes, a toothbrush, toothpaste and shampoo. Guardsallowed us to walk in a yard, and the weather was surprisingly warm. Wereceived pomegranates and other fresh food and Nestlé Pure Life waterbottled in Pakistan.

The tribal areas were more developed andthe Taliban more sophisticated than I expected. They browsed theInternet and listened to hourly news updates on Azadi Radio, a stationrun by the American government. But then they dismissed whateverinformation did not meet their preconceptions.

Atiqullah said heneeded to return to Afghanistan, but two of his men stayed behind toguard us. “I will return in 7 to 10 days,” he promised, thendisappeared.

That week, to help us pass the time, we received ashortwave radio and a board game called checkah, a Pakistani variationof Parcheesi. To my amazement, the guards even brought meEnglish-language Pakistani newspapers. Delivered to a shop in MiramShah, the newspapers were only a day or two old. Instead of beating usas I expected, our captors were at least trying to meet some of ourneeds.

But as in so much of our seven months in captivity, reasons for optimism would be overtaken by harsh realities.

Forthe next several nights, a stream of Haqqani commanders overflowingwith hatred for the United States and Israel visited us, unleashingblistering critiques that would continue throughout our captivity.

Some of their comments were factual. They said large numbers of civilians had been killed in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Palestinianterritories in aerial bombings. Muslim prisoners had been physicallyabused and sexually humiliated in Iraq. Scores of men had been detainedin Cuba and Afghanistan for up to seven years without charges.

ToAmericans, these episodes were aberrations. To my captors, they wereproof that the United States was a hypocritical and duplicitous powerthat flouted international law.

When I told them I was aninnocent civilian who should be released, they responded that theUnited States had held and tortured Muslims in secret detention centersfor years. Commanders said they themselves had been imprisoned, theirfamilies ignorant of their fate. Why, they asked, should they treat medifferently?

Other accusations were paranoid and delusional.Seven years after 9/11, they continued to insist that the attacks werehatched by American and Israeli intelligence agencies to create apretext for the United States to enslave the Muslim world. They saidthe United States was forcibly converting vast numbers of Muslims toChristianity. American and NATO soldiers, they believed, were making Afghan women work as prostitutes on military bases.

Their hatred for the United States seemed boundless.

TEN days passed, but Atiqullah did not return as promised. Badruddin now seemed to be in charge.

He moved us to a far smaller, dirtier house. The space we were allowedto walk in was the width of a city sidewalk and ringed by high walls.The food was unclean and made me sick.

Our first night there,the Taliban commander who owned the house promised to update us everythree days on negotiations for our release. But we would not see himagain for months. The guards stopped taking Tahir to a local doctor fordigestive and skin ailments.

And it was increasingly clear thatTahir and Asad would be separated from their families for Id al-Adha —a major Muslim holiday that marks Abraham’s willingness to sacrificehis son to show his devotion to God.

Alarmed by the worsening treatment, Tahir and I began a hunger strike in early December. At first, the guards panicked and begged us to eat. We refused.

Aftertwo days, the guards said Atiqullah had called and told them that adeal for our release was nearly complete. He said he was waiting forapproval from President Hamid Karzaiof Afghanistan, who was on a foreign trip. The French aid worker in thevideo I was shown had been released, they said. We would be next.

Fearing that our continued defiance would anger our captors and scuttle the deal, we began eating again.

Insteadof releasing us, Badruddin moved us to yet another house. It was largerthan the previous one but felt more like a prison. Twenty-foot-highconcrete walls surrounded a small courtyard where I spent my dayswalking in circles. For the first time in my life, I began prayingseveral times a day, and I found that it centered me.

Westarted preparing our own meals. The food was cleaner and fresher, butcooking for ourselves gave a worrying sense of permanence to ourimprisonment.

Badruddin visited us several days later andpromised that negotiations were continuing. But he was increasinglycasual. Any sense of urgency about our release seemed to be fading.Before leaving, he told me the Taliban would not kill me.

“You are the golden hen,” he said, clearly expecting me to lay a golden egg.

I asked him to promise not to kill Tahir and Asad. Speaking directly tome in broken English, he said the Taliban had decided to kill Asad iftheir demands were not met in a week. After he left, Tahir and Idecided not to tell Asad.

I panicked over the next two days,frantically trying to think of ways to save our young driver. Since thethree of us had arrived in Pakistan on Nov. 18, I had spent hours eachday talking politics, religion and survival with Tahir, but I couldbarely communicate with Asad.

I spoke little Pashto, he spokelittle English. I came up with a routine when a newspaper arrived. Ishowed Asad photos and tried to explain what they were about. Helaughed, but I felt like a monster. Asad was an impoverished,hard-working father of two — and I was going to get him killed.

On the third day after Badruddin’s visit, I told one of our guards thatI was willing to make a video — or do anything they wanted — to saveAsad. The guard said he would check with Badruddin. The following day,the guard announced that it had all been a misunderstanding. There wasno deadline to kill Asad. I didn’t know what the truth was but feltenormous relief.

Several days later, Badruddin arrived to makethe video. He promised us that it would go only to our families, butwhat he instructed us to say made me think it would be releasedpublicly. As guards pointed assault rifles at our heads, I called forPresident Bush and President-elect Obama to meet the Taliban’s demands.

“If you don’t meet their demands,” I said, “they will kill all of us.”

Tahirand Asad then made similar statements. Badruddin departed, and I toldmyself that our families would at least know we were alive.

AsDecember dragged on, tensions in the house steadily grew. Qari, theguard who had nearly shot Tahir, tore the checkah board to shreds afterhe repeatedly lost. Then, Tahir and Asad ripped up two other checkahboards out of frustration as well. Qari began spending hours alonereciting the Koran and seemed increasingly distant and unstable. Iworried that the situation was slowly spinning out of control.

SEVERALdays before Christmas, Atiqullah finally returned. He announced that hehad spectacular news. “We are here to free you,” he said, wearing noscarf over his face for the first time. “We have come here to releaseyou.”

At first, I was euphoric. My confidence in Atiqullah hadnot been misplaced. Here was a more moderate and reasonable Talibanleader who would persevere and release us.

Then, later that night, the conversation turned menacing.

TheAmerican military had mounted an operation to arrest Abu Tayyeb on themorning that we were to interview him, Atiqullah said, referring to theTaliban leader we had been traveling to meet when we were kidnapped.

Shocked, I told Atiqullah I knew nothing about a military operation.

Ihad sent text messages from my cellphone to Saudi Arabia before theinterview, Atiqullah claimed, to tip off the American military aboutAbu Tayyeb’s location. Again, I told him I had no idea what he wastalking about.

Finally, he announced that I was a spy, alongwith other employees of The Times in Afghanistan. His men had prepareda suicide attack on the paper’s Kabul bureau, he said, which he couldset off with a single phone call. His men had nearly kidnapped CarlottaGall, our bureau chief, but she had left an interview just before theyarrived.

“She was probably given information,” he said, seemingly convinced that all journalists were intelligence operatives.

Our imprisonment, I thought, had reached a low point. My colleagues inKabul were now in danger. Atiqullah’s talk of our imminent releaseseemed farcical.

The following morning, Atiqullah insisted thatthere was, in fact, a deal. At one point, he said we would be exchangedwithin “days.” He toyed with me, asking which flights I would take backto the United States and how many television cameras would be at theairport. He asked me what I would say to my wife when I saw her.

By this point, I began to doubt everything he said. Then I learned that he had lied to us from the beginning.

Inconversations when our guards left the room, Tahir and Asad eachseparately whispered to me that Atiqullah was, in fact, Abu Tayyeb.They had known since the day we were kidnapped, they said, but darednot tell me. They asked me to stay silent as well. Abu Tayyeb had vowedto behead them if they revealed his true identity.

Abu Tayyeb had invited us to an interview, betrayed us and then pretended that he was a commander named Atiqullah.