In February, 2008, journalist Jere Van Dyk, who had spent a lot of years in Afghanistan, was kidnapped by the Taliban and held for 45 days. He was the second American journalist kidnapped in Pakistan (the first was Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, who was beheaded by his captors six years before Van Dyk was taken). He wrote about that experience in 2010 in the book, “Captive.”
After going back to Afghanistan to report on his own story, he’s published a new book called “The Trade: My Journey Into the Labyrinth of Political Kidnapping.” Here’s my conversation with him about his search to find out who had kidnapped him, why he was let go, and what the current situation is in Afghanistan, where the US has been at war for 17 years.
Listen to our conversation here.
Previously on Harris Online…