By: E&P Staff Stephen Farrell, the New York Times reporter who was freed in a daring commando raid, has now posted his account of his four days in captivity -- and the death of his colleague. A commando was also killed.
It's
E&P Pub here at the Times' "At War" blog:
An excerpt follows.
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Although their discipline was good in their conduct toward us, their operational security was hopelessly inept. So much so that the supposed team leader would be bellowing my name and the word ?journalist? repeatedly into his Nokia cellphone ? they all had Nokias operating on almost no battery life and no reception ? heedless of who was, almost certainly, monitoring the calls. From the car?s cassette recorder blared the words ?Taliban, Taliban? in song.
They were not making it hard.
By Day 2 or 3, new characters emerged. One very scary, powerfully built Talib, who seemed to inspire awe among his underlings, sat staring at us, saying almost nothing. When they finally found a house with electricity, two youngsters produced a tape recorder and began blaring hours of religious sermons, praising Osama bin Laden, the mujaheddin of Chechnya, Somalia, Helmand, Kandahar and anyone fighting the Americans. The repeated mention of prominent extremist groups and individuals, such as Hizb-i-Islami and Abdul Rasul Sayyaf did nothing to ease our fears about being handed over to other Taliban or Qaeda groups.
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