World

David Rohde, New York Times reporter, escapes from the Taliban

by Amy Judd | June 20, 2009 at 07:52 am

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David Rhode, the New York Times reporter who was stationed in Afghanistan, has escaped from The Taliban after being held by them for seven months along with two other men. They were taken on November 10 2008.

He escaped, along with a local reporter, Tahir Ludin, and while their driver Asadullah Mangal was also being held, he did not escape with the two other men.

Mr. Rohde was part of the Times reporting team that won a Pulitzer Prize in May for coverage of Afghanistan and Pakistan last year.

Mr. Rohde told his wife, Kristen Mulvihill, that Mr. Ludin joined him late Friday night in climbing over the wall of a compound where they were being held in the North Waziristan region of Pakistan. They found a Pakistani army scout, who led them to a nearby army base, and on Saturday they were flown to the American Bagram military base in Afghanistan.

“They just walked over the wall of the compound,” said Ms. Muvihill.

Mr. Rohde is said to be in good health, while Mr. Ludin has an injured foot, but both men are now safe. The news was kept quiet until now for the men's safety.

“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,” said Bill Keller, the executive editor of The Times. "We decided to respect that advice, as we have in other kidnapping cases, and a number of other news organizations that learned of David’s plight have done the same. We are enormously grateful for their support.”