In December of last year, I found out that New York Times reporter David Rohde—part of the team that seems to have a permanent Pulitzer prize for its continuous, superior coverage of Afghanistan and Pakistan—had been abducted just south of Kabul during a reporting trip. The source who clued me in did so as a way of warning me of the dangers of my own trip there a few weeks later, and asked me to keep a lid on it out of respect for his family. I did so.
Now, finally, he has escaped after seven months of captivity in North Waziristan.
Mr. Rohde told his wife, Kristen Mulvihill, that Mr. Ludin joined him late Friday night in climbing over the wall of a compound where they were being held in the North Waziristan region of Pakistan. They found a Pakistani army scout, who led them to a nearby army base, and on Saturday they were flown to the American Bagram military base in Afghanistan…
“We’ve been married nine months,” Ms. Mulvihill added. “And seven of those, David has been in captivity.”
Mr. Ludin was a local stringer working with Mr. Rodhe. Asadullah Mangal, their driver, did not escape with them, and there are no details about his location or condition right now. (UPDATE: The NYT updates their story to note that Mr. Rodhe said Mr. Mangal “opted to join the Taliban.”) The NYT claims it paid no ransom and no Taliban were released in exchange. The three men were abducted after being “invited”—I would say “lured”—to interview a Taliban commander of some sort. Mr. Rohde is a very skilled journalist, having won a Pulitzer for his coverage of Srebrenica in 1996, so I don’t think he was taking a stupid risk. He simply misjudged the risk.
I am very glad Mr. Rohde is out, and his stringer is safe as well. I am, however, deeply concerned about his driver. I understand why the NYT didn’t focus on his fate, as he may still be in captivity and vulnerable… but considering how the militants treat “collaborators”—especially the Haqqani Network, which is the primary cross-border insurgent group based in Waziristan—I’m worried he’s been tortured to death.
Update: The NYT updated their story 20 minutes ago to note that Mr. Rodhe said Mr. Mangal “opted to join the Taliban.” This obviously changes my concern about Mr. Mangal, though there is the possibility he did so to avoid violent consequences for himself or his family. There is also the very real possibility that Mr. Mangal facilitated the luring of Mr. Rodhe, and is complicit in his abduction. Considering the two escaped journalists only arrived at Bagram this morning (Bagram time), there will obviously be more details as time goes on.
The Washington Post chimes in as well, noting that Mr. Rohde was going to meet with a Haqqani Network commander in Logar. While there’s nothing about Haqqani “emerging in recent years” as a threat (he commanded the resistance during Operation Magistral in 1987), they do note that Mr. Ludin, the local stringer, arranged the interview at Mr. Rohde’s request. Which means Mr. Mangal may not have baited them. They also raise the implication that Mr. Mangal may have stayed behind for some other, unstated reason.
Update 2: What the hell? Now the NYT story is back to saying Mr. Mangal, Mr. Rohde’s and Mr. Ludin’s driver, “did not escape with the other two men.” So maybe my original concern about Mr. Mangal was warranted. But they need to stick to a story or issue an official correction, or explain that there are conflicting accounts of what he did. Changing the text of the story like that without explanation is not very good etiquette on the web or in print.
This post was written by...
Joshua Foust – author of 1771 posts on Registan.net.
Joshua Foust is a Fellow at the American Security Project and the author of Afghanistan Journal: Selections from Registan.net. His research focuses primarily on Central and South Asia. Joshua is a correspondent for The Atlantic and a columnist for PBS Need to Know. Joshua appears regularly on the BBC World News, Aljazeera, and international public radio. Joshua is also a regular contributor to Foreign Policy’s AfPak Channel, and his writing has appeared in the New York Times, Reuters, and the Christian Science Monitor.
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NYT says that their driver has joined the Taliban.
That is a recent update, 18 minutes old. I’ve updated the post.
I met David Rohde in spring 2004 — good guy, very smart and engaged with the issues, as you’d expect. We heard about his abduction last fall as well, and I’m tremendously relieved that he’s finally safe.
I imagine this will add a chapter or two to the book he was working on…
To former 18A, and to vengeance7, thank you gentlemen for being right on target. Visitors to this site, do yourselves and the world a favor and read these guys, the guys who are actually there and KNOW what is going on and going wrong. Matter of fact most of the guys (who’ve been off the FOB) over there know the deal, the problem is the calls are made, and all the big plans, are made by the brass who have never been outside. Vengeance7 speaks of ‘air assaults to nowhere’, man you got that right. They surely look great on OER’s (officer evaluation reports) and surely look like a work of genius as these guys draw them up on the MAP! But we spend FOREVER planning these things, and FOREVER getting all the leadership’s chess pieces all perfectly into place. So all the bad guys who hadn’t heard all about the operation to come in the previous weeks (or months) (because it’s a fact of life that we have to coordinate this stuff with the Afghans) sure as hell have plenty of time to go stay with their cousin in the next district/province over until the heat dies down. And they do exactly that. Because the bad guys want absolutely NO PART of a big fight with the Americans. And on the rare occasions when our war-college geniuses get it right, they want to ‘close the noose’ (Anaconda??) and by the time the noose closes, surprise, the bad guys all slipped out in little groups at night over the last few days. Our guys come back frustrated and angry at the Big Slow Army and the clueless nitwits pulling the strings. The average civilian would think hey, we have the best military and the best officer corps in the world, surely we have learned.. You would be half right. Same story has repeated itself endlessly. And oh, the story by Vengeance 7 about being held at the gate of the FOB on a technicality while our allies were getting shot up? Close buddies in my unit, same thing happened to them in Sharona, ANP they were mentoring got all shot a click or 2 away because the leadership wouldn’t let them out of their FOB without paperwork. Now that’s how you build a relationship based of trust with the Afghans huh?? I could go on and on. And i probably will, but like vengeance 7 said, we all got to thing of opsec and our brothers too. We’re trying to help ‘em, not hurt ‘em. That’s what our “let them live to fight another day” leadership does.