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‘NYT’ reporter Rohde escapes from Taliban captivity

David Rohde of the New York Times interviews Afghans in the Helmand region in August 2007. PHOTO: REUTERS

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.

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.
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