2 Kidnapped Reporters Escape the Taliban
After being held captive by the Taliban for more than seven months, Tahir Ludin, an Afghan journalist, and David Rohde, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist from The New York Times, escaped their kidnappers. The two reporters spoke to journalists on Sunday about their ordeal.
After being held captive by the Taliban for more than seven months, Tahir Ludin, an Afghan journalist, and David Rohde, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist from The New York Times, escaped their kidnappers. The two reporters spoke to journalists on Sunday about their ordeal.
Wait, before you go…The New York Times:
An Afghan journalist who was held captive by the Taliban for more than seven months along with a New York Times reporter revealed details on Sunday of a nighttime escape that included weeks of careful plotting, taking advantage of weary guards and dropping down a 20-foot wall with a rope.
The Afghan journalist, Tahir Ludin, 35, said in an interview that the escape early Saturday from the second floor of a Taliban compound in North Waziristan, in Pakistan’s tribal areas, was a desperate attempt by two severely demoralized reporters who believed that the Taliban were not seriously negotiating and would hold them indefinitely.
Mr. Ludin and David Rohde, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist at The Times, along with their driver, Asadullah Mangal, were abducted outside Kabul on Nov. 10 as Mr. Rohde traveled to interview a Taliban commander for a book he was writing about Afghanistan.
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