I would return to Pakistan nearly a dozen times over the next eighteen months for the Times and to make a documentary for the German TV channel ZDF. On one of those trips, I managed to snag an interview with a senior Taliban commander who belonged to the powerful Quetta shura, led by the one-eyed Taliban leader Mullah Omar.
Like my meeting with the ISIS commander on the Turkish-Syrian border several years later, the logistics of that meeting were complicated: don’t bring any recording devices; make sure no one follows you; once in our car, you must take the battery out of your mobile. I was told that the Taliban commander would choose the place. “It could be the last meal—maybe a drone, maybe a special commando, you never know,” the contact man had told me. I waited for him to laugh after he had said it, but the expression on his face was serious. He ran his right hand through his black beard and said, “Insha’Allah khair”—God willing, all will be well.
My dinner date was a wanted man. He had to be extremely cautious, as did I. The meeting took place in Karachi, the city where the Jewish-American Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl had been kidnapped and killed in 2002. All my contact gave me was the name of a road and a description of the place where my car should stop and wait.
The Taliban commander had asked for the make, model, and color of the car, along with the plate number. My driver, Adnan, normally worked for tourists and visiting schoolteachers. When I handed him a sheet of paper with the names and phone numbers of two people and told him to call them if I didn’t return in three hours, he blanched.
“I will stay here and wait for you,” he insisted.
I told him that he should leave when the other car arrived. “No, no. I cannot leave you here alone. This is a side road leading to the highway,” he said, pointing out the window. “And it is dark. You are crazy. This is dangerous.”
Soon afterward, a car stopped behind us. The headlights were on and my phone was ringing. “I’ve got to go, Adnan,” I said, climbing out of the car. “Please leave now.”
I walked back to the other car, a new dark blue Mercedes with tinted windows. The door was opened for me and I got in. Inside, the Taliban commander was smiling. “Why is your car stopped?” he asked me in Arabic. “There is no need for your driver to wait. We’ll take you back. Tell him to go.”
As I phoned Adnan, all I could think about was that my editor at the Times was going to kick my butt if I got kidnapped by the Taliban so soon after my colleague David Rohde had escaped after more than seven months in Taliban captivity. That morning, Michael had sent me a link to the first part of Rohde’s account of his imprisonment, which had just been published on the Times website. After hanging up with Adnan, I switched off the phone and took out the battery, as agreed. In the car I sat quietly, looking out the window and wondering if I’d made the wrong choice.
“Are you comfortable?” the commander asked. He must have noticed my nervousness. “Are you worried that some of your colleagues are going to ask how it is that you are meeting with us?”
This was insightful. Since my first days in Pakistan, some journalists had suspected that I might be a spy, and some militants had similar suspicions about me. I also knew from my time in Algeria that I could add several Western governments to that list. Someone in the Pakistani army spokesperson’s office had told me he’d heard from some Arab reporters that I was Moroccan, and that in Morocco “there are a lot of Jews.” They surmised that because I worked for American newspapers, I was also working for the CIA and Mossad. But most of my colleagues were simply worried about my safety. Western reporters in Pakistan, as in other conflict zones, are limited in their movements and access. The danger is great. Many news organizations depend on Pakistani stringers to cover everything outside the big cities.
I noticed that our driver seemed jumpy, his eyes moving erratically between the open road ahead and his rearview mirror. I tried to talk to him but he spoke neither English nor Arabic, and I don’t speak Urdu or Pashto. Soon we had left the center of Karachi and were passing through neighborhoods with few lights. I stared out the window, trying to discern where we were going. I heard the sheikh open a bottle and start spraying something in the car. “Maybe the air is not good,” he said. “You look very pale.” The smell of roses and musk filled the car.
I couldn’t believe it. I was worrying about whether I would survive, and this guy was spraying perfume. The night grew darker as we passed through the Karachi suburbs. Finally, the commander’s assistant, who was sitting next to the driver, turned around and said in English, “Don’t worry, we won’t kidnap you this time. It’s just that the sheikh would like to invite you for good barbecue, and the best places are by the highway.” The assistant laughed and translated his words into Pashto for the driver, who started laughing as well.
It was after 11:00 p.m. when we arrived at the restaurant. The commander was skeptical of reporters, and he asked me many questions about my family, my goals, and my faith. I told him that my parents were Muslim and that I’d grown up in Europe. When he asked if I was married or had kids, I said no.
I, too, had a long list of questions, mainly about his thoughts on the new American president, Barack Obama, and the U.S. presence in Afghanistan.
“You know,” he said, “Obama has no say in what his country does. It’s the lobbies and other people. He has promised a lot, too much. But we are not expecting any changes.”
I asked him what exactly he meant.
“If America and the West really want to have peace with the Muslim world, they have to change their global attitude and their arrogant way of pushing their interests. We don’t see any changes. Obama is the same as Bush, only in black.”
“Then what has to happen for peace?”
“We have nothing against the United States,” he said. “We just don’t like people telling us how to live.” The West had forced the Taliban from power, but the commander believed that he and his comrades would retake Afghanistan.
I looked at the three men, all of whom sat across the table from me. “But what would that mean for women?” I asked. “For example, would I still be able to do my job if the Taliban were in power?”
The translator laughed, and soon the others joined him. The sheikh answered in Arabic. “Souad, choose the color of the burka, and no problem: you can go on with journalism.” He was referring to the garment worn by many women in Afghanistan, and required under the Taliban, which covers the body from head to toe, including the face, leaving only a small latticework opening for the eyes.
“I don’t like to wear the burka. The Koran doesn’t tell a woman to cover her face.”
“Yes, Souad, you are right. The Koran doesn’t say that women have to wear the burka or cover their faces, but this is the tradition in some areas, and shouldn’t it be up to the people to decide?”