The Great Escape

I’m glad to see a lit­tle light thrown on this story. And very glad to know David and Tahir are safe.

KABUL, Afghanistan — 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.

When I heard they had escaped, I won­dered (along with a few journos here in Islam­abad) if they had actu­ally “escaped” after a ran­som had been paid. I was assured that was not the case, and this new story lends cre­dence to the orig­i­nal Great Escape story.

Eason Jordan’s AfPax has more on the story, includ­ing infor­ma­tion on the nego­ti­a­tions and the media blackout.