A New York Times reporter kidnapped in November by the Taliban and held in the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan has escaped to freedom, the newspaper reported on its Web site on Saturday.
David Rohde and a local reporter who were abducted outside of Kabul along with their driver “just walked over the wall of the compound” where they were being held captive in Pakistan’s remote North Waziristan region, Rohde’s wife Kristen Mulvihill told the Times after speaking with her husband.
Rohde and the Afghan journalist, Tahir Ludin, made their daring escape on Friday night and managed to find a Pakistani army scout who escorted them to a nearby army base. They were flown to a US air base in Bagram, Afghanistan, the newspaper reported.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Their driver did not escape with them.
Rohde, 41, was said to be in good health, while Ludin injured his foot in the escape, the Times said.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed her pleasure and relief at their escape.
“I am pleased and greatly relieved by the news that New York Times reporter David Rohde is safe,” she said in a statement.
Although occasional reports of the abduction had found their way onto the Internet, the Times and other media had kept the kidnapping quiet out of a concern for the men’s safety, it said.
“From the early days of this ordeal, the prevailing view among David’s family, experts in kidnapping cases, officials of several governments and others we consulted was that going public could increase the danger to David and the other hostages. The kidnappers initially said as much,” Times executive editor Bill Keller said.
Rohde won a Pulitzer prize for his reporting on the massacre of Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica for the Christian Science Monitor before joining the Times.
He was working on a book about the US involvement in Afghanistan when he was invited to interview a Taliban commander, but disappeared on Nov. 10 after he left the Times bureau.
“We’ve been married nine months,” Mulvihill said. “And seven of those, David has been in captivity.”
“Now we just hope to have a chance to reunite with him in peace,” she said.
‘NO SECURITY RISK’: The Railway Bureau reassured the public that the technicians’ activities were limited to technical guidance and did not involve sensitive systems The Railway Bureau yesterday said it had invited eight Chinese technicians to assist with an airport MRT construction project. The bureau issued the confirmation after an Internet user said Chinese nationals had entered the construction zone of Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport’s Terminal 3 project. They asked why “individuals from an enemy state” were allowed access to such a major national infrastructure project, which raised serious concerns over Taiwan’s industrial safety, sensitive systems and information security. The bureau’s Northern Region Engineering Branch Office said subcontractor Taiwan Handle Industrial Co (台灣手把工業) of the Taoyuan airport MRT’s “Contract No. CU05 Project A14 Station Civil, MEP &
The National Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology yesterday showcased its locally developed variants of the Vision 60 robotic patrol dog, which it plans to deploy on the nation’s outlying territories in the South China Sea. The variants were produced under the Joint Lab project — created by the institute and domestic companies — and assembled with domestically produced motors, lenses and artificial intelligence (AI) systems alongside licensed tech from the US, Missile and Rocket Systems Research Division deputy director Jen Kuo-kang (任國光) told the media event at a military base in Taipei’s Dazhi (大直) area. Taiwan has built up its strengths
NOT IMMEDIATE: Taiwan has a chance to appeal the proposed 10 percent tariff before it starts, while other countries face a 12.5 percent tariff from the trade office Taiwan is among 60 economies determined by the US to have failed to impose or enforce a ban on the importation of goods produced with forced labor, according to a notice released on Tuesday by the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR), which proposed imposing an additional 10 percent or more tariff on them. The USTR in a statement said that following an investigation, it had determined under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 that the failure of the 60 economies to impose and effectively enforce a prohibition on the importation of goods produced with forced labor is
TIT-FOR-TAT: The US allegedly revoked the visa of a Chinese national working at Xinhua News Agency in the US in response to Beijing’s expulsion of Vivian Wang The Presidential Office yesterday condemned China for expelling a New York Times correspondent from Beijing following the newspaper’s interview with President William Lai (賴清德), saying the move highlighted Beijing’s suppression of press freedom and its threat to international news media. Taiwan has noted a series of recent incidents in which Beijing used similar tactics to “threaten and pressure international media outlets and journalists,” Presidential Office spokeswoman Karen Kuo (郭雅慧) said in a statement. “This concerns not only press freedom and freedom of expression, but also the safety of journalists, and Taiwan and relevant partners are paying close attention to the situation,” she
RSS