In the 1990s, Pakistani intelligence officials used the tribal areas as one of several bases from which they funded, trained, and dispatched militants to fight Indian forces in Kashmir, the disputed region over which Pakistan and India have fought three of their four wars. Hard-line religious schools also spread across other parts of Pakistan. The schools, in turn, supported religious political parties that called for the establishment of Islamic law across Pakistan. They also indoctrinated young Afghan refugees.
In 1994, a group of young Afghans who had been educated in conservative religious schools in Pakistan founded the Taliban movement. First emerging in southern Afghanistan, the name they adopted—“Taliban”—meant “students” in Pashto. They attacked warlords in Kandahar who they accused of rampant criminality and corruption. With the backing of the ISI, the Taliban took Kabul in 1996 and established what Pakistani intelligence officials considered a friendly regime.
The next year, the Pakistani government finally granted the inhabitants of the tribal areas the right to vote in national elections. Civilian political parties, though, were barred from campaigning in the tribal areas. As a result, fundamentalist clerics aligned with Pakistan’s religious parties and schools swept elections in 1997 and 2002. The clerics’ dominance allowed the ISI to continue to use the tribal area as a training base.
As Atiqullah moves us farther into the tribal areas, I know we are entering an area cut off from the rest of the world where xenophobia and conspiracy theories are rife. One particularly poetic phrase that Churchill penned a century earlier has lingered in my mind for months. Since 2001, I have felt it applies to how effectively terrorist attacks sow fear, division, and mistrust.
“Every man’s hand is against the other,” he wrote, “and all against the stranger.”
Our first home in the tribal areas is in Miran Shah, the capital of North Waziristan. We arrive at night and I see nothing of the town.
Our new quarters consist of two large sleeping rooms that look out onto a small courtyard. One even has a small washroom, separate from the toilet, for showering. Makeshift pipes have been fastened to the walls.
The next morning, I go to the bathroom and make myself vomit in the hope it will somehow pressure our captors. An amiable older man who is a local doctor visits soon after. He speaks basic English and seems puzzled by my presence in Miran Shah. I intentionally tell him I am a journalist with
The New York Times
and hope he might somehow help us. Later, I learn that he did speak with local people about me. As a result, I am banned from seeing other doctors.
All day, a parade of random Pakistani militants stops by the house to stare at us. I again feel like an animal in a zoo. Among them is a local Taliban commander who introduces himself as Badruddin. I will later learn that he is the brother of Sirajuddin Haqqani, the leader of the Haqqani network, one of the most powerful Taliban factions in the region. Miran Shah is its stronghold. Their network of commanders guided us across eastern Afghanistan. They are known for discipline, ruthlessness, and ties to foreign militants.
Badruddin, a tall, talkative man with brown hair, brown eyes, and a short beard, appears to be in his early thirties. He announces that he is preparing to make a video of us to release to the media. He smiles as he shows me a video on his camera of a French aid worker who was kidnapped a week before us as he walked to his office in Kabul. He is in chains and appears to have welts on his face. The aid worker implores his family and friends to save him.
“It’s a nightmare,” he says. “I really beg you to pay.”
I ask if Tahir and I can speak alone with Atiqullah, who I believe is the more moderate commander. I tell Atiqullah we should not make the video. The American and Afghan governments are more likely to agree to a secret prisoner exchange, I say, than a public one. I also know that if the Taliban set a public deadline and it is not met, they will enforce it brutally. Failing to do so would be a public loss of face, something deeply shameful to Pashtuns and all Afghans.
Trying to reduce their expectations, I tell him it would be far easier to get prisoners from the main Afghan-run prison outside Kabul in the town of Pul-i-Charkhi. If the Taliban demand prisoners from the American-run detention centers at Guantánamo Bay and Bagram, they will never succeed. I am not worth that much, I tell him, and he should compromise. I do not say it but I also want to spare my family the pain of seeing me in a hostage video. I know if a video arrives they will fear it shows an execution. To my surprise, Atiqullah agrees.
“I am one of those kinds of people,” he says at one point. “I am one of those people who like to meet in the middle.”
In the afternoon, he announces that Tahir, Asad, and I will be allowed to call our families tonight to prove we are alive. Atiqullah tells me to emphasize during the call that he wants to reach a deal quickly. He continues to cover his face with a scarf. I hope that means he plans to release us and does not want us to be able to identify him to American or Afghan officials.
Ignoring the countless lies Atiqullah has already told me, I maintain some type of hope. This is my first brush with a dynamic that will unfold multiple times in captivity. My mind’s tendency to grasp at straws despite grim evidence to the contrary.
I spend the rest of the day nervously scribbling a list of things I want to say to my wife. I add items and then cross them out. I want to ease my family’s fears that I am being tortured, but I also want to do everything possible to free us. I am not sure I will have another chance to speak with Kristen.
THE TALIBAN CALL COLLECT
Kristen, November 19, 2008
T
he phone rings at 6 A.M. The FBI alerts me that my husband will be calling home. Within a half hour, a group of six agents floods our small apartment in lower Manhattan: a translator, two case agents, the two-person negotiation team, and a victim’s counselor. With the exception of Cathy, who led my phone training session over a week ago, all the faces are new to me.
Jim is now the lead agent and investigator on our case. A former Port Authority policeman, he lost several colleagues in the attacks on the World Trade Center on 9/11. When a national Joint Terrorism Task Force was established in the aftermath, he was eager to join the team. The lead FBI negotiation expert, Phil, is a former hostage himself. As a teenager, he and his family were held in their home for a brief but intense period of time. The ordeal ended when Phil distracted the armed hostage taker, a high school student, so his family could escape. Phil was shot in the process, but recovered. I am struck by the fact that each individual on the team has been motivated by personal loss or direct experience of kidnapping. We huddle together around the living room sofa and review the training points.
The FBI learned of the imminent call from the newspaper’s Kabul bureau. Atiqullah has alerted Chris Chivers at the Kabul bureau that David will be permitted to phone home. Atiqullah says that when they call, I should look at the number that appears on caller ID and call him back at my own expense, as his phone card is running out of credits. This astounds me. In addition to being ruthless, the Taliban are also cheap! This is absurdly amusing. Finding humor in the most morbid and extreme circumstances actually keeps me from falling apart and gives me some minor sense of control.
At 8:30 A.M., the phone rings. It’s David. We have been sitting by the phone for two hours and yet the call still manages to take me by surprise. It’s very odd to be sharing this personal moment with a roomful of people I have only just met. I feel like our relationship, all our vulnerabilities, are on display. Oddly, though, this helps me maintain composure. There’s nothing like a crowd to ensure a steady performance. As instructed, I don’t answer and call David back on the number that appears on caller ID.
It is a relief to hear my husband’s voice, to know he is still alive. He sounds shaken, but his voice is strong, his thinking clear. This puts me at ease. I return the favor by maintaining composure for him. I realize this may be the only time we speak and I want to convey a sense that I am holding it together and will not give up, that I can handle this situation.
“Kristen?” David says, “Kristen?”
“David,” I say, “It’s Kristen, I love you.”
“Kristen?” he asks.
“Yes?” I say.
“I love you, too,” he says, “Write these things down, okay?”
“Okay,” I say.
“Do you have a pen?” David asks.
“I have a pen,” I say.
“I’m—we are being treated well,” David says.
“Being treated well,” I repeat.
“Number one,” David says.
“Number one,” I repeat.
“Number two,” he says. “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 three of us.”
“Deal for all three of us,” I repeat. “The driver and the translator as well.”
“Okay. Do not use force to try to get us,” David says.
“Do not use force,” I repeat.
“Four,” he says.
“Yes,” I say.
“Make a deal now or they will make it public,” he says. “They want to put a video out to the media.”
I repeat his words back to him.
“It will make it a big political problem,” he says. “They want to do it now,” David says. “They don’t want to make it public. They want—they want to make a deal now.”
“Want to make a deal now, okay,” I repeat.
“’Cause they don’t want, they don’t want a big political problem with the leaders on both sides,” he says. “They don’t want the elders to know.”
“Okay, they don’t want elders to know,” I say, “and they do not want problems on our side, okay.”
“Make a deal, just make a deal quickly,” David says. “Please make a deal quickly.”
He pauses for a moment.
“They said I can’t call you again,” David says. “They want a deal now and I can’t call you again.”
“You cannot call me again,” I repeat. “I love you. I love you, honey.”
“I love you, too,” he says. “Tell my family I’m sorry.”
“Your family is here,” I say. “Lee’s here with me.”
“I’m sorry,” David says. “I’m sorry.”
“Lee’s here,” I say, trying to reassure him.
“I’m sorry about all this,” he repeats.
“It’s going to be all right,” I say. “I love you. I am praying for you every day.”
I say I want to make sure I understand what they want. There is a pause and David relays a message from Atiqullah. He says the Kabul bureau should talk to him and negotiate with no one else. David says Atiqullah will call the Kabul bureau after we hang up and provide a list of demands.
“What is the deal? What is the deal?” I ask, trying to extend the call and get specifics. “Is it, what is the exchange? What do you want?”
David again says that Atiqullah will give his demands to the Kabul bureau.
“We are very concerned about you,” I say. “And we love you and we’re praying for you.”
David repeats that Atiqullah will provide his demands to the Kabul bureau.
“Okay, okay,” I say, “and how are you?”
There is a beep and the call ends abruptly.
After I catch my breath, our team reviews the conversation. I let them know which parts of the conversation were truly David—namely, the desire to make a deal for all three—and which seemed scripted. They are very optimistic about the call and my performance. I am patted on the back for my composure. It seems I have discovered a new skill set—one that enables me to be calm under pressure. My worst nightmare would be bursting into tears in front of a roomful of people.
At the same time, I feel completely enraged at my husband’s captors and utterly confused. If they want to make a deal so quickly, why won’t they list their demands? This is all part of a sick psychology on the captors’ part: make the family feel totally responsible and utterly without control. Demand they meet demands, but fail to name them. I begin to wonder if the “make a deal quickly” was a signal from David, that perhaps he would be moved or sold up the food chain to a more powerful group of criminals or terrorists. This, I am told, often happens in kidnappings in Afghanistan.
My mind is racing, and I feel trapped. Our one-bedroom apartment is swarming with people. Mismatched dining and living room chairs are scattered all around. There doesn’t seem to be enough space or air in our modest living room to accommodate them all. My mother steps in and urges everyone to clear out. She encourages me to go to work to take my mind off the situation—seemingly impossible—or at least to pass the time. I wonder how I can possibly do that.
Our case agents as always advise me to take care of myself. This, they say, is my number one responsibility. I will be better able to help my husband if I am in good physical shape. “Do not forget to eat, try to sleep. A call could arrive at any moment. You need to be prepared. This is the best thing you can do for your husband. David is going to need you to stay strong now and especially for when he returns.” I will hear these directives repeatedly over the next few months.
As I walk to the subway, questions reel through my mind: Should I just jump on a plane to Kabul? Is it wrong for me to continue the routines of daily life? Am I being cowardly, or selfish, seeking refuge in my work? Practically speaking, I need to keep working. We have burned through our savings over the past few months between the wedding and honeymoon. And our country is facing the worst economic downturn in decades. Even in the fog of this crisis, I realize I need to keep my job as long as possible. In terms of my own sanity, I know it does me no good to stay in the apartment all day and sit by the phone. The last thing I want to admit to is that I am a victim as well, captive to a call that might or might not come. If I give up on daily activities, his captors will have succeeded in thoroughly disrupting our lives. I do not want them to win. Anger at the creeps holding David and his colleagues propels me forward.