by David Rohde
He and the other guards speak of the foreign militants in the tribal areas with reverence. In conversations, they refer to Osama bin Laden with the honorific “Sheikh Osama.” For several weeks, they take turns attending bomb-making classes from Uzbek militants in Miran Shah. They set off enormous explosions but Pakistani forces never come off their base to investigate. The only signs of a Pakistani military presence are planes and helicopters taking off from an airstrip somewhere to our east.
Timor Shah—our chief guard—is particularly proud when he comes home one day from bomb-making class with skinned knees. He set an explosive but did not give it a long enough fuse. As he ran away from the bomb, he dove to the ground as the blast erupted behind him. In some ways, the guards remind me of young soldiers anywhere. They enjoy playing with guns and testing their own strength. Chunky enjoys taking apart and cleaning his machine gun over and over. When I tell the guards my pen is my weapon, they laugh.
Day and night, they monitor American-funded Voice of America Pashto-language service radio and celebrate reports of the deaths of Afghan and American soldiers. Whenever a guard hears a news bulletin describing a major Taliban suicide bombing, he excitedly calls for the other guards to come listen. Hunched around the shortwave radio, they shout “God is great!” in unison after the number of dead is announced.
I try to get to know one of Sharif’s fighters, a young Pakistani Pashtun named Hamid who is training to be a suicide bomber. In his twenties, he has a slim build, brown hair, and brown eyes. He graduated from a high school in Pakistan and at one point hoped to become an engineer. He never attended college but is relatively well educated compared with the other fighters.
Conversations with him help me understand how hard-line Islam’s focus on the next world eases the training of suicide bombers. Taught that their relationship with God is all that matters, young recruits are slowly distanced from their families. When I ask Hamid why he wants to die, he replies that living in this world is a burden for any true Muslim. Heaven is his goal, he says. Earthly relationships with his parents and siblings do not matter. Music, laughter, and idle chatter are seen as distractions from worship. Life is a flat, colorless existence that is something to be endured, not enjoyed. Days are spent studying the Koran, praying, and fearing judgment day. If he successfully carries out a suicide bombing, he believes he will die as a martyr and ensure he goes to heaven, not hell.
Hamid speaks a smattering of English, and my own beliefs seem to interest and amaze him. During our six weeks together, he asks me a series of questions. Is it true, he asks, that a necktie is a secret symbol of Christianity? Is it true that Christians want to live a thousand years? Is it true that American soldiers hunt wild pigs—animals that Muslims consider unclean—and feed them to their commanding officers?
Sharif, a tall, burly, and imposing figure, tells me that the Taliban have been unfairly portrayed by the Western media. He says that the Taliban would have allowed girls to attend school when they governed Afghanistan, but security problems prevented them from doing so. Once security improved, he insists, girls would have been allowed to enroll in classes. He expresses dismay at the United States, a country he considered an ally against the Soviets. The 2001 American invasion was unjustified, he says. The Taliban should have been allowed to try Osama bin Laden on its own and determine if he was guilty of the 9/11 attacks.
When I ask him about my captivity, he tells me that each day the Taliban hold me they deliver “massive political blows” to the American government. When I tell him that my case is not public and Americans don’t know I’m a prisoner, he insists that my case is still consuming American government time and resources.
When we discuss journalism, he declares that he is an enemy of The New York Times because it supports secularism. He says that secularism is the Taliban’s adversary and religion must govern all aspects of life. He flatly rejects my compromise suggestion that strict Islamic law be enacted in Afghanistan’s conservative rural south, while milder forms of Islam be followed in the comparatively liberal north.
Citing the Taliban’s interpretation of Islam, Sharif says it is every Muslim’s duty to try to stop others from sinning. If one person in a village commits a sin, God will also punish those who witness it and do not stop him. The concept of God judging us as individuals does not seem to exist for him. To ensure that he goes to heaven, Sharif believes he must persuade others to become strict Muslims as well.
One day, I receive a Pakistani English-language newspaper with a photograph of Barack and Michelle Obama dancing at an inaugural ball. For weeks, Sharif has looked through the newspaper and used a pen to scribble out women’s faces from photographs. Any portrayal of the human form is an affront to Islam, according to the Taliban’s interpretation of the faith. Hamid burns newspapers after I have read them, seemingly convinced that their removal cleanses the house. On the day I receive the newspaper with the photo of the Obamas dancing, Sharif flips through the paper and stops at the picture of the Obamas. He stares at it briefly and then spits on it.
One morning, two of our guards leave for bomb-making class and Mansoor leaves for the market. As one guard naps in Sharif’s bedroom, Hamid announces he is going to pick up bread for our lunch from a nearby madrassa. He departs and I realize we have a chance to escape. I find Tahir and tell him that we can close the door to the room where the guard is sleeping, slide the bolt on the door’s exterior, and lock him inside. If we act quickly, we can take his rifle and radio and walk out of the compound.
Tahir rushes to Asad and the two speak feverishly in Pashto for several seconds. Asad picks up a machine gun that is lying on the floor and I don’t understand what is happening. We do not need the machine gun. It will make us more conspicuous and slow us down. We need the Kalashnikov. The Taliban and local tribesmen consider any man walking through Miran Shah without one suspicious.
“He is acting strangely,” Tahir says, referring to Asad.
The two speak again in Pashto. If we do not act now, Hamid or Mansoor will soon return. Tahir walks outside to see if anyone is nearby. He walks back inside the compound and again talks with Asad. Finally, Tahir announces that Asad thinks it is too dangerous for us to simply walk out of the compound. Tahir agrees with him. The area is filled with Taliban, he explains. We will quickly be shot or arrested. We decide to wait.
Their judgment proves wise. A few minutes after our conversation ends, Mansoor walks through the front door. He says he was walking home from the market and saw Tahir step out of the compound. He demands to know what happened. Tahir says he stepped outside to get water from a nearby stream to wash clothes. Mansoor remains suspicious.
Later, Tahir tells me that he is worried about Asad. Our driver is having, long secretive conversations with the guards. When Tahir asks him what they are speaking about, Asad does not give clear answers. I do not worry and assume that Asad is pretending to befriend the guards in order to keep himself alive.
As February comes to an end, the guards demand I stop washing the group’s dishes because they do not want to catch my diseases. They believe the intermittent diarrhea I suffer stems from being an inherently unclean non-Muslim, not from unhygienic food.
Sharif begins repeatedly pressing me to convert. In excruciatingly long conversations, he tries to get me to agree with him that there is only one God. He asks me to repeat after him in Arabic “There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his prophet”—the words uttered by someone converting to Islam. He orders me to read a passage of the Koran each day and discuss it with him at night. He dismisses my arguments that a forced conversion is not legitimate. He and the guards politely say they feel sorry for me. If I fail to convert, I will suffer agonizing pain in the fires of hell.
Whether or not I read the English-language Koran that Atiqullah gave me has become a source of tension. Some guards argue that I should not be allowed to touch a Koran because I am an unclean non-Muslim. Barring nonbelievers from reading the Koran baffles me. I do not und
erstand how a non-Muslim is supposed to learn about Islam if they are not allowed to read its holy book.
Sharif believes it is permissible for me to touch the Koran Abu Tayyeb gave me because it includes Arabic, Urdu, and English script. An actual Koran, he says, is written only in Arabic. In a compromise, he tells me to not touch the part of the pages of the Arabic, Urdu, and English Koran that contain Arabic script. That part of the pages, he says, is sacred.
Each time I touch the book I fear I will accidentally drop it. Each time I turn the paper I fear I will tear it. Either act will be seized upon by my guards as blasphemous. In an effort to show respect, I place a scarf over my hands to prevent my flesh from making direct contact with their holy book. Before I pick up the Koran, I whisper “In the name of Allah, the most merciful and beneficent” in Arabic as they do. After Mansoor accuses me of insulting Islam by pointing my feet—which Muslims consider unclean—toward Mecca while reading, I sit cross-legged. Eventually, I copy passages into a notebook so I can read them in peace.
The English-language Koran I have been given has a brief biography of the prophet Muhammad as its introduction. It describes Islam’s founder as a great social reformer of his time. He called for equality, justice, and an end to the tribal feuds and greed that beset the Arabian peninsula in the seventh century A.D. Most of all he calls for honesty, piousness, and justice.
“O ye who believe! Be steadfast witnesses for Allah in equity, and let not hatred of any people seduce you that ye deal not justly,” reads one verse. “Deal justly, that is nearer to your duty. Observe your duty to Allah. Lo! Allah is informed of what ye do.”
To me, Muhammad’s calls for honesty, humility, charity, compassion, and confession of sins echo the tenets of all the world’s faiths. Instead of making me want to join their cause, reading the Koran makes me believe our captors are not following his core teaching. The dishonesty, injustice, and greed they show in my case are the opposite of what I am reading.
Since arriving in the region in 2001, I have come to see the West and the Taliban as competitors in a race to put in place a government system that can produce noncorrupt leaders who provide security and jobs for their people. The Taliban argue that implementing their strict version of Islamic law—replete with beheadings—is the best way to do so. The United States and its allies argue that free-market democracy is the answer.
My time living in India has shown me that steadily implemented, indigenous versions of free-market democracy can work. India is a place of hope for me. While not perfect, I see it as a relative success story that may offer lessons for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Based on my reporting there, I feel that religious extremism is a problem among all faiths in India, but the country’s messy and chaotic democracy generally tends to slowly mollify it. When allowed to vote freely, impoverished, illiterate Indians show remarkable savvy in choosing leaders. Minority groups often feel they receive some airing of and response to their grievances. Elections are generally considered credible in India due to the vital role played by a handful of strong, independent institutions: a national supreme court, an independent election commission, and a free news media, among others. Corruption and poverty remain crippling across India, but the country’s free-market economy and educational institutions are steadily growing.
Pakistan, on the other hand, remains hugely fraught with ethnic and political divisions and handicapped by inconsistent economic growth. The country’s powerful army continues to quietly manipulate politics, and the three institutions that play a central stabilizing role in India—the supreme court, the election commission, and the free press—remain only partly independent in Pakistan. Coups and manipulations by the military have resulted in no democratically elected government serving its full term since Pakistan won independence from Great Britain in 1947. In the army’s defense, the country’s civilian political class has also performed poorly. Unlike in India, no comprehensive land reform has been carried out in Pakistan to break the lock on civilian power enjoyed by the country’s landed oligarchs. Pakistan’s current president, Asif Ali Zardari, is ineffective, surrounded by cronies, and widely viewed as corrupt, according to Pakistani newspaper editorials I receive.
Afghanistan is in an even more dire state politically. After thirty years of war, the country’s institutions have been shattered. Deep suspicion divides its ethnic groups. Its most basic form of government, its tribal structure, has been severely weakened. And President Karzai is seen as increasingly mercurial, opportunistic, and unwilling to control corruption.
A question that has hovered over many other developing countries I have covered lingers over Pakistan and Afghanistan: Is a messy, unstable democracy better than a stable one-party or military-led government? Judging by my reporting in India, I still agree with moderate Pakistanis and Afghans who see an imperfect, locally created representative democratic system and education reform as the best hope of creating long-term stability in their countries. It may take decades to achieve in Pakistan and Afghanistan—as it has in India—but it can work.
Living in the tribal areas has made me even more convinced. Compared with the dynamism of New Delhi, Islamabad, and Kabul, Miran Shah seems frozen in time. An incessant focus on the next world has led to intolerance, zealotry, and stagnation in this one.
On some days, the virulence I see among the Haqqani foot soldiers eases. Amid the monotony and tension are moments of kindness and levity.
When no commanders are present, Mansoor allows me to walk in a small walkway between the house and perimeter wall. If I follow the narrow path, I can walk in large circles around the house. For a few moments during each loop, I am momentarily alone. Since my fake suicide attempt in late December, I have been constantly under the watchful eye of a guard. Moments of solitude are blissful.
Taking advantage of the privacy of walks around the house, I sometimes touch a spot on the wall where I imagine Kristen’s face is. On others, I run back and forth in the small alleyway, eager for endorphins that will raise my spirits.
To my relief, on one afternoon, the guard we have nicknamed Chunky leads me through the jihadi-version of calisthenics. He and I perform deep knee bends in the yard as Tahir, Asad, and the other guards guffaw. I look like a white-bearded, geriatric militant, but the exercise—and laughter—are a godsend.
With the guards’ approval, Asad buys a volleyball in the local market one afternoon. For several weeks, the guards, Tahir, and Asad play volleyball in the small, dirt-covered yard. During the games, they spike the ball at one another’s head as powerfully as they can. They invite me to join them but I decline. Eventually, they hit the ball so hard it careens into a neighboring compound and is never seen again.
For several weeks, Tahir is allowed to play in a local pickup soccer game held near our house and Asad is allowed to hunt birds in our yard. He and Akbar construct a crude cage out of slats of wood and chicken wire, stand it on its side, and spread bird food on the ground. When birds come to feed, they pull the cage down with a string. Each day, they spend hours waiting for birds to be lured into their trap. They eat the handful of birds they manage to catch. Tahir and I oppose the hunting. We argue it is wrong to kill anything simply for sport. I have an irrational fear that God will punish us for Asad’s bird hunting and prolong our imprisonment.
On one Saturday night, Akbar helps me find an Indian music station that plays Western music. In broken Pashto and English, I try to explain the meaning of the INXS song “Beautiful Girl” and the Lenny Kravitz song “Fly Away.”
One young Talib even tells us that his commander has ordered him to kidnap a foreigner working in Afghanistan, but he refuses to do so. If a foreigner has come to help the people of Afghanistan, he says, they should be treated well. He suggests I read a passage from the Koran each day for comfort.
“Allah tasketh not a soul beyond its scope,” it says. “For it is only that which it hath earned, and against it only that which it hath deserved. Our Lord! Impose not on us
that which we have not the strength to bear! Pardon us, absolve us, and have mercy on us, Thou, our Protector, and give us victory over the disbelieving folk.”
At night, Sharif and the guards search for ways to break the monotony. If it weren’t for us, they say, they would return to Afghanistan and help prepare spring offensives. After dinner, Sharif often tells long jokes. He tells one joke involving a man who stutters in Pashto so convincingly that I find myself laughing while not understanding a word he says. On many nights, he seems to sincerely want to cheer us up.
Still trying to gain their sympathy, I reenact my wedding for Sharif and the guards one night. I have Akbar stand beside me and play the part of Kristen. They seem fascinated as I describe how Kristen’s father walked her down the aisle and gave me her hand. They listen intently as I explain how Kristen and I placed rings on each other’s fingers and recited our wedding vows. When I take Akbar’s hand and pretend I’m sliding a wedding ring on his finger, they howl with laughter.
During the wedding reenactment, I decline to mention other details that will paint me as a hedonistic nonbeliever. I do not say that the service took place in a church and ended with the bride and groom publicly kissing, a scandalous act for Pashtuns. I know it is odd to share my wedding with my captors, but I am still trying to humanize myself in their eyes.
The activity Sharif and the guards love most, though, is singing Pashto songs after dinner. My voice and Pashto pronunciation are terrible, but our guards urge me to sing along. The ballads vary. On some evenings, I find myself reluctantly singing Taliban songs that declare, “You have atomic bombs, but we have suicide bombers.”
