Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/new-york-times-reporter-rohde-details-his-kidnapping-by-taliban Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript New York Times reporter David Rohde recounts being kidnapped by the Taliban for more than seven months while working on a book in Afghanistan. Gwen Ifill reports. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. JIM LEHRER: Next, we go to Gwen Ifill for a reporter's story of captivity and escape in Afghanistan and Pakistan. GWEN IFILL: Nearly a year ago, New York Times reporter David Rohde set out from Kabul for what he thought was an interview with a local Taliban commander. Instead, he was kidnapped.For the next seven months and 10 days, Rohde, his driver and an Afghan journalist he was working with were held prisoner. They were moved to a series of houses, first in Afghanistan, then in the lawless tribal regions on the Pakistan side of the border, where Osama bin Laden is thought to be hiding.Their lives were repeatedly threatened. They got away only by staging their own escapes. Rohde told his story last week in a five-part series in The New York Times. He joins us now to share that story.Welcome, David Rohde. DAVID ROHDE: Thank you. GWEN IFILL: Explain for us, for those people who didn't get to read your series, how exactly you came to be taken. DAVID ROHDE: We were invited to an interview by a Taliban commander, as you said, a local commander just outside of Kabul. He had given several prior interviews to other foreign journalists, and not kidnapped them. We felt we could trust him.But, from the beginning, we were abducted. And then, after only one week in Afghanistan, we were brought into Pakistan's tribal areas. GWEN IFILL: We all have many images in our minds about what it means to be held hostage, especially in wartime, especially in an unmarked region. How were you treated? DAVID ROHDE: I was treated very well physically by the Taliban. I was never beaten. I was given good food and even given bottled water. They brought me English-language Pakistani newspapers, and they let me walk in a small yard each day.The problem was that their demands in exchange for our release were extraordinarily high. They asked for $25 million in a ransom at different times, and then as well as prisoners from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. And, as time went by, we — we felt they were never going to release us.