Taliban: Terrorists Without Borders

After several hours of driving down one of the two-lane asphalt roads that wind through Pakistan’s tribal areas, our kidnappers entered the territory of Baitullah Mehsud, the widely feared leader of the Pakistani Taliban. It was the middle of March in 2009. We had feared that our kidnappers--Afghan Taliban who had abducted us outside Kabul four months earlier--would sell us to the Pakistani group. But instead our car pulled into the parking lot of a large government building or school in the town of Makeen, in South Waziristan. The Pakistani Taliban politely ushered my Afghan Taliban guards, myself, and the Afghan journalist and driver who had been kidnapped with me, into a back room. There they fed us tea, rice, and bread for dinner. Then they transported us to an empty house nearby, which would serve as our new prison.