Good evening everyone and welcome to tonights event were delighted to have joining us this evening Jerry Van Dyke and investigative journalist focusing on terrorism in the middle east region and our moderator carlos Senior Vice President of program at a World Affairs were recording tonights program so please take a molt to silence your cell phones. My name is tim callahan a Program Officer here at a World Affairs. If you enjoy tonights discussion and youre interested in learning more about the organization, i will be around after the program. So please introduce yourself. I will now like to turn it over to our moderator carlos. So good morning everyone and thank you for joining us its my great pleasure to introduce is our guest this evening jer is rei van dyke a journalist, author and cbs news consultant who covers afghanistan and pakistan. Host authored a book called captive my time as a prisoner of the taliban and another work in afghanistan. Also written for publication New York Times newsweek and national geographic. And in 1981 while workings a correspondent for New York Times, van dyke lived with the hadine as they battled soviet army from 2006 to 2009, he served as a senior fellow for the Carnegie Canal for International Affair and senior fellow in 2008 he went to afghanistan and pakistan to research the taliban for a book. But he was subsequently captured by the taliban and imprisoned for 45 days. Becoming the second american journalist to be captured, his most recent book the trade my journey into the political kidnapping discusses the political and economic motives of kidnapping. And hes currently an adjunct senior fellow on relations joining us here tonight to talk about the trade. And the geopolitics of kidnapping and way in which Tourist Groups have been used in kid mapping so jerry welcome and thank you so far for joining us. Thank you. And i think to start we probably need to understand a bit about what, what made you want to write the trade. What had caused you to need to go back and really think hard about the way in which kidnapping is being used. I think the best way for me to answer what is if you recall just before steven was murdered by isis he wrote a letter when he was in his cell with jim philly and others to his parents and in that letter he said everyone has two lives. The second one begins when you realize you only have one. And i was someone told o me as a the greeks say twice face is i survived my kidnapping and i felt and feel that i have an obligation as one who survived to keep alive name of those who were murdered. To speak on behalf of those who did survive and who dont want to talk about it and detail the world what is now what i consider a new and extremely potent, new form of political warfare. And as karla said, i was the next person kidnapped after i was the second person kidnapped first one wases danielle is journalist reporter in karachi and pakistan held for two weeks dont know exactly when but he was slaughtered by al qaeda and the ransom demand was that the u. S. Provide to pakistan the f16s that we had provided to them that we had sold to them but failed to deliver as well as to provide better treatment for men guantanamo a rather strange demanding for a Tourist Group when you think about and that was the beginning of political terrorism after 9 11 and nighs the next person as karla sod kid mapped after a him and ill do this quickly but when my book captive came out in 2010 few things happened one i was giving talk many new york before a jowrnlgist society in Greenwich Village at the end i was signing box and man came up to me with with his then girlfriend my wife and he said you said tonight this is what mi6 intelligence agent said to we did Everything Possible to prevent a second damage pearl and he said to me this young man asked me do you think he would have survived if you were jewish, oh no one ever asked me anything like that. I began to think and some time a few months before then daniel pearls father had written an article in the wall street journal in which he said i feel that my son has died in vein. And i took a while but then i wrote him a letter and i said no. Im alive because of your son. And they invited me out to los angeles to see them. And i went out to see them. And no way easier to cross them out into pakistan than to go see them. And we had a lunch together and we spent two dayses together, and i said that i thought of daniel pearl when they took the knife out in my proposed execution two of them. But the big difference is and its all of the difference in the world that i dont have a right to talk about it is that my case they put it back. But when camera was rolling and i look at the man i say okay lets do it its you and me i thought of nicholas and danielle berk next person kidnapped after daniel pearl kidnapped in 2004 and beheaded. And so i began a trip because of this man in 2010 who came up to me after my book came out to go become and find out this was the first reason there are others of why Danielle Pearl was really kidnapped and looked deeply into his story which i didnt feel was really ever brought out in which i found a lot about and write about in the book. So there were multiple reasons why i went back. And there was one final reason to tell you this is that in 2012 i was, and as karla asked me this working for cbs i wases prevented from going east of turkey. And people are afraid that you are going to get in trouble again. And that u. S. Is seen as a bit one man said to me toxic cbss use me less and less afraid of what i might say or that i might embarrass people and so another fellow named john kidnapped his drive killed he was kidnapped by a Secular Group of different ethnic group than the taliban that belong to, and he said to me, were like candidates that people think weve been brainwashed and so you live with that. And more than anything elses youre a victim. Always a victim. When i went to see pearl in his paper reporter said to me so thats what whair going to say in your obituary that youre a victim whats it like living life where youre seen as a victim in order to get over that become say a man again. I was a another reason. And final reason. Is that in weve, i came home at night from work and there was a letter from the in 2012 i came home from work and there was a letter from the department of justice federal bureau of investigation, what is this about . The fbi is in charge of all kidnappings of americans anywhere in the world and the letter said, this is a paraphrase, dear jere van dyk, we regret to inform you we are closing your case. We know this probably comes as a bit of a shock, difficult for you to comprehend. Please dont think it is disrespectful in any way of that we saw fit to close your case. If in the future we find reason to open it we will. I sat there and i said they got away with it. The men who were involved in it, they got away with it. It is up to me to go back and find out the truth. Those are the things that led me on this journey. Tell us more about the number of political kidnappings and why they started to occur in larger numbers. We dont actually hear about these cases as much as we should because one of the strategies is of course to try not to have it be a subject of discussion in the press. How many people are being held and what is the motive for increasing political kidnappings . I dont know how many are being held today. It is important to distinguish between political kidnappings and commercial kidnappings. If you work for shell oil and you post on an oil rig off the coast of nigeria your chances of getting kidnapped are quite high. All of these things are business, they operate political kidnappings in lawless areas, somalia, tribal areas of pakistan, iraq, syria, coats of nigeria across the sahara. Those are political kidnappings. Today outside as a protocol for dealing with political kidnappings. The used to get 50,000. Most recent one was a swedish person, a motorcyclist south of the sahara, 10 million so it is very much a business but to get to your question, the exact number of political kidnapped victims being held todays secret. I dont know. The fbi would have that information. Do they work closely with the cia . They compete with the cia, we know the story, after 9 11 if the fbi and cia may be worked together, maybe they would have prevented 9 11. The reason they compete is tribal warfare, they want larger budget and greater power but as one fbi agent said the cia does not have to testify in court. They can operate completely under the radar without any accountability which is extremely dangerous. Donald trump has said the cia like the American Military will have the ability in afghanistan, can you give greater power to the cia, greater latitude to use drones indiscriminately. In february 2002, i happen to cover this case, i was there at the time, daniel pearls case was the First Political kidnapping after 9 11 and he was kidnapped in pakistan, there were 26 people involved in his kidnapping, the same number involved in mind. Most were pakistani but it was an al qaeda operation and many people feel it was al qaedas way of announcing to the world that they existed. What they just did a few weeks before 9 11, it was in the political world, the political kidnapping world this was their way of saying we are here and they introduced a new form of political warfare. Kidnappings per se started in the modern era in 1983, hezbollah taking terry anderson, another journalist in beirut, but post9 11 the focus because those people, all of those held by hezbollah there was never a ransom demand for any of them. They were used as ponds against the United States and france and that was the first time. The second part, the second side to the two sided form of warfare is bombing and that is when they bombed the Marine Corps Barracks in 1983 and 10 minutes later the french paratrooper barracks. The First Political suicide bombing in the afghan pakistani theater took place in pakistan in 1995 orchestrated by the head of al qaeda, a very interesting back story to that that i will come to in a minute. The second kidnapping was Nicholas Berg from pennsylvania went to iraq, he was kidnapped the city, jordanian, he comes out, he went this is the introduction of al qaeda, i will talk about this more in a minute. He went from jail to pakistan and then he went to a refugee camp, the Guerrilla Group in the southern philippines got its name, trained there and went to tora bora and developed his credentials, he went to iraq, most people here will know this story, in order to create al qaeda in iraq, he had to assert himself in vicious war against the shia but kidnapped Nicholas Berg, it was shown on television, introducing al qaeda to the world and i was at cbs, in the newsroom the day the video was shown in the argument between the National Editor and another editor of similar stature over how much of this video are you going to show because i remember the screen but what were talking about is absolute power of television and political kidnapping as a form of warfare used by the week against the strong, the next kidnapping was in couple when three un workers were kidnapped and that is when the u. S. Army and us embassy, the us military more than anybody else and we have to shut this down. There is something starting here so very hard to try to stop what happened to keep it relatively quiet. And researching my book the interior minister in charge of this said there is absolutely no answer whatsoever. I talked to a British Intelligence agent who said there is no answer whatsoever and the government friend of mine said there is a ransom and the money disappeared which is the truth. I dont know the truth. You may be able to discern it based on the evidence i provide in the book, the head of the un refused to talk to me. I tried many times. The next kidnapping after that was three years later in afghanistan, and Italian Foreign correspondent named danielle who i felt a bit cavalier he and somewhat arrogantly when i heard this story, very naively, went with an afghan sixer which means a guide and the driver to southern afghanistan to meet with the delavan and he was kidnapped. The demand was the karzai government released delavan prisoners and that the italians remove themselves, members of nato in afghanistan remove all forces, italy refused, karzai refused to release the men, the delavan beheaded the driver and the sixer, italy panicked, italy paid a huge ransom and it was the first time that a government paid a ransom for a western kidnapping victim. There was never a chance for the pearls to have an opportunity or the burkes. A few months after that, very naive, south korean missionaries, christian missionaries went to afghanistan, it illegal to evangelize for christians in the italian embassy, the catholic church, anybody whether you are a soldier or foreign worker, the only place to go to church in afghanistan. They were kidnapped. Two people were killed. The south Korean Intelligence Agency paid, according to reuters and others, 22 million. The United States tracked them down and killed them all and i was next. Demands for me was 1. 5 million and three men from guantanamo. The next person after me with the New York Times, his demand was 25 million which quickly came down but in his case or in my case they called me the golden goose. A week after david was kidnapped i was out and went to the New York Times and they started this group, same thing cbs and the wall street journal and others have done to figure out what to do. They call david the red rooster meaning they are not going to kill him. Hes worth a lot of money. A kidnapping victim is a commodity. In my case they wanted to exchange my sixer and my father comes in at the collateral. If you want to take a loan out you have your house, the Bank Collateral for a human being. In the kidnapping world collateral is a human. The next after that to end this real quickly, becomes very extremely powerful is execution of jim foley, which we all know about, which is the second most remembered, watched, and remembered since 9 11, the most remembered even for the entire population is the towers coming down, the second one is the execution of jim foley. That is arguably the reason why the United States went to war. Horrified the nation, galvanized obama, led to the war on isis. Two weeks after that, stephen sought her off solderoff, then another one killed by a bomb. So upset the Obama Administration they called all of us former hostages and families of those who were killed to the white house and in 2015 we met with the president and Vice President as they tried to create a new form of policy where the United States, people like my parents, my father, my brother and sister or the pearls could negotiate with the kidnapping victim, with the kidnappers. First time, that became the policy. The final point which i forgot to mention is because this was before 9 11, in 2000, two christian missionaries from kansas kidnapped in southern philippines, went through a horrific year in the jungle, the george w. Bush administration authorized a ransom. They said so publicly, 320,000, the money disappeared, i deal with this in the book, they, the white house said if it leads to the capture of the kidnappers then this is the way we it is possible, we are going to provide a ransom and some people feel it was done for bushs christian constituency, you can argue whether that is the case or not but the United States did provide a ransom and it got to the point, skipping ahead, in the white house in 2015, some of you may have seen this on television, it came to the point where with the case of Bowe Bergdahl being kidnapped, the how connie network which held him was able to extract a ransom payment for proof of life. The pentagon did it, the fellow in charge of that stated so publicly and he was going to be courtmartialed but he was let out of the army so today what we have, most recently, we will talk about this later is this week we had a release of a family, a canadian American Family that made headlines throughout the United States involved in that for a long time come behind the scenes with the families on the other side and i will talk about that but it shows the power of kidnapping and the most important thing about that was the entire time from post9 11 when the Bush Administration and the Obama Administration we would never negotiate with terrorists. We would never deal with the taliban and. The Bowe Bergdahl case, the how connie network was able to raise itself to the point they negotiated directly with the United States for the release of Bowe Bergdahl so kidnapping allowed elements of the talent and to achieve almost, i wont say nation stature, to be accepted as a nationstate but they were able to force it where the United States had to negotiate to get Bowe Bergdahl out. Thank you for that and for talking about your own experience and trying to give some context and reminds us of all the individuals and families who have been affected by this strategy over many years. You spend quite a bit of time and do quite a good job portraying the complexity and the nuance of radical islamic movements that are active in afghanistan and pakistan. They tends to run together in the mind of the casual observer and listening to you speak right now, you speak about the taliban, al qaeda, the connie network, isis. Talk about the important differences you see between those groups and is there a meaningful way to say one of these groups may be more radical or dangerous than others in your view, in your investigation . Radical is a very interesting word. I am not taking a political stance. One mans Freedom Fighter is another mans terrorist. My background in afghanistan, i can explain it this way. When i was a very young man i had been in the army and the fellow was here tonight, afterwards i went to graduate school and in paris you could buy an old car and it was something kids were doing in europe and sell it in asia. A way to make money. So i told my parents and to this day my brother and i do not know why our mother said yes but we bought an old volkswagen in germany and drove it across asia. That is when iran was our ally. It was a great adventure, today that road is called somewhat romantically the hippie trail. If you saw a movie called midnight express about billy hayes, drug trafficking, he got caught in istanbul. When we finally arrived in afghanistan we ran out of money, i got caught in a car accident, there were 5 to 6000 hippies in kabul in the city of mosul, 250,000, it was a small city, school girls wore long socks and addressed in short skirts like catholic schoolgirls, left in the streets, there were 9 movie theaters in a city of 250,000, women dressed as they did in europe and the brotherinlaw and first cousin of the king who was former Prime Minister established a republic. He had initially as Prime Minister come to john kennedy, the Kennedy Administration and asked for money, foreign aid, we send no, he went to the soviet union, he wanted to remain nonaligned but began to move to the soviet union. This was seen by young muslim activists as the red prince. During that time from berlin to berkeley it was either it was marxism, communism, socialism and islam. Young men under the tutelage of certain professors in kabul university, in egypt under the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood and the principal literary backbone of the Muslim Brotherhood brought those books back, translated them, gave them to these students, 12 flat across the country to pakistan. I interviewed the Major General who took the man for this book. There was a code name, maker the candlestick maker, mason, electrician and so forth gave him the passport, put them in the Pakistani Army to train them. He told me, this is important in 1973. And i went to the us embassy and asked for money. I was unable to find out if we said yes and gave the money but in 1975 these young men, 12, ultimately there were hundreds that came over and with a professor who gave them the books from kabul university, called themselves the mujahedin which means in persian or arabic, holy warrior. They launched attacks against Government Installations in afghanistan in 1975. Most of them were killed or captured. In july 1979 robert gates has written about this, former head of the cia has written about this being head of cia, jimmy carters National Security adviser said in an interview in 1998 with a french magazine the cia meaning the United States, jimmy carters administration began to fund secretly, to live 1979 the mujahedin in order to, these are the words, these are not my words, lure the soviet union into afghanistan to pay it back for backing the vietcong and north vietnamese when we were in vietnam. The chinese became our allies during this time. The idea was, the head of the isi which is the military intelligence arm of the Pakistani Army said in his memoir of his time, he was in charge of the money that came in, distributing it among the mujahedin the principal reason in his view, born out by carter and gates, the reason we went in was revenge. So together we created and began to nurture what we call the mujahedin. At the same time, the 9 11 Commission Deals with some of this, they talk about numbers. With our allies from algeria, egypt, saudi arabia, yemen, throughout the muslim world and they came according to rumors from brooklyn meaning the us, there were offices in each of these countries come of the man who beheaded Nicholas Berg is in this category. Every one of these countries where young men looking for something to do in life, something greater than himself. A cause for which to live, something to give purpose in life could go into an office, get a passport, a visa, a plane ticket and an allowance to go to pakistan. According to the 9 11 commission, i think there are many more, these men are all arabs for the most part, indonesians, filipinos, some americans, they were taken to a certain place, a house where they could get some food and maybe stay and sent to refugee camps and into the country. They became, one of the men, helped them in the house, Osama Bin Laden and this became the house was called the base. Al qaeda means the base. What we today call al qaeda. They both came out of that cauldron if you will of afghanistan. Another man who was there was the man who beheaded nick berg. And he came made his way back carrying his jihad with him which he wanted to bring to jordan where in 2002 he killed an american diplomat in the us invasion in iraq. He went into iraq to create al qaeda there. One of the men who worked for him in this group of mujahedin they called themselves was the name he chose to use, our baghdadi, the founder of isis. It is what started in 1973 is now added point where they are all almost the same. There is no distinguishing the children of al qaeda. Children or stepchildren of al qaeda. The taliban, when i was in captivity, i had to listen to hours and hours of taliban suicide tapes and in those recruitment tapes they would talk about a chance, a hunting vienna boys choir, a chance about afghan poetry, afghan, past tune, two main ethnic groups, past and being the Largest Ethnic Group in the World Without their own homeland between the kurds in the past ands, largest number in pakistan, second number in afghanistan, 50 million give or take. s they would sing a chant of poetry, history, geography and the telebeen are more of a nationalist movement. Very much a nationalist movement. Without being too complicated there is not a boy over 10 who doesnt believe or feel every past tune that the british when they went to afghanistan and the first british crossed from india across crossing into the land of the past ins at the same time lewis and clark reached the pacific ocean. Today which is part of pakistan pushing the forward policy to prevent russians from coming down and taking the crown jewel of the british empire, the border they created which divide afghanistan from pakistan which no Afghan Government has ever accepted including the taliban government. So this is where the war is being fought. This is the center of this. The birthplace, fountain head of all these movements. One other movement you didnt mention yet. The how connie network. How does that relate to isis, al qaeda, the taliban . It does. When i was a young, naive journalist explorer, more explorer in my naive way than journalists of any sophistication at all, went to afghanistan i went along the border, the mujahedin by then had been divided up by pakistani into seven Major Political parties and the us and saudi arabia were each, this came out in the movie Charlie Wilsons war to a degree. I was the Technical Advisor on the war where i got in numerous arguments with the cia analyst on the war. I will come to that in a second. They deal with it in Charlie Wilsons war and that is the let me just what was i talking about . I was asking about the how connie network and you were telling me about it. In 1981 when it went to afghanistan i went to these Major Political parties and went to one in particular i like them better than the others and a man who is today my best friend in afghanistan and put the major part of my book and and a major reason i was kidnapped, send me to live in the mountains with the mujahedin and they were not part of the original group that fled to pakistan and formed the mujahedin, they were separate. In 2015, in april, i may be getting ahead of myself but have to do to answer your question. When i went back to find out who really kidnapped me and why it took a long time but i went through two tribal leaders and they arranged for me in ways i still cant quite put together how they did it, but i became the only western journalist to have met with them before 9 11 i had several meetings with them the most recent in june, had many conversations with them. They are separate, they are not part of the mujahedin, they established, their father raised goats, the come from the mountains but this family is remarkable in its ability to go from the mountains of eastern afghanistan to the point they are able to negotiate almost directly with the government, Bowe Bergdahl and coleman. There are two more, an american and an australian. The how connie network is arguably the oldest, the most lethal, most effective, Deadliest Terrorist Organization in the world including isis when you count the number of people they have killed. They are separate they are their own arm, according to admiral mike mullens 2011 testimony before the Senate Armed Services committee, the Haqqani Network is an integral part or arm of the Pakistani Army. Terrorist groups do not operate generally in a vacuum. There are links from yemen to egypt to saudi arabia. Turkey. So the haqqanis, good point you brought up, the haqqanis are unique in that they are neither isis, al qaeda, the taliban and, they were the mujahedin, publicly they stated they are the taliban but they hold a unique position with the Pakistani Army. When i was with former head of the cia in pakistan, Technical Advisors are the title, Charlie Wilsons war, having lunch in a hotel in hollywood and i asked about the haqqanis and he lowered his head like this and said i wish they had come over to our side. There was a bond that developed with the haqqanis and the cia. They would allow me to come back and spend hours talking with them. Host thank you for that. Every answer you give provides so much complexity and i can think of ten questions to ask. I want to get to some of the questions with the audience, and to bring you up to the present, Us Engagement and policy in afghanistan so i would like to ask you in 2010, you and many other journalists wrote an open letter to president obama advocating he moved to sica peaceful relationship with the taliban. How do you feel about prospects for peace in afghanistan and continued us involvement in afghanistan today . The war against the soviet union, the war between the United States involvement in afghanistan in so far as we are concerned in 1979 the mujahedin where seen as a proxy army for the United States and the cold war. We did not want to put our own soldiers in afghanistan so we hired this mercenary army of arabs, turks, filipinos, we funded with saudi arabia the mujahedin, taking a tolerant muslim nation like afghanistan, turning large elements into saudi arabia in afghanistan, thereby changing the complexity of afghanistan, pakistan where thousands were built, in their desire to promote wahhabi islam around the world and that created this cauldron of war the soviet union saw that they pulled out, the geneva accord ended that war in geneva, it was between pakistan and afghanistan, there were on the sides. It was negotiated. We did not provide as much as before. We kept active and the soviet union kept pouring arms into the communist government they had in power and it continued. Afghanistan has been at war since 1978 and since 1979 out of which came the tragedy of 9 11 and president bush to try to destroy al qaeda and was asked more than anything else we wanted to get Osama Bin Laden. Omar refused to do it in the principal reason is tribalism, and they talked about this, there was no way mullah omar felt he could go against the ancient tribal code of the past tunes, and give up against in his home. There was a movie about an american soldier named latrell who was shot down, in pakistan, against his fellow tribesmen and villagers to protect him, that was required under tribal law so the inability of mullah omar which was ancient afghanistan coupled with wahhabi is him and the deadliness of the vast influx of weaponry into afghanistan has created a completely new world so the talent been which emerged to cleanse the land of their errant brothers are backed by pakistan, today still wage war. President obama had close to 90,000 troops in afghanistan. That he pulled them all out. The war continued, now a new president said he is going to take the gloves out, allow the cia greater latitude with drones, allow the Army Commanders on the ground to do what needs to be done to clean this up, more air support. The more air support the more villagers you are going to kill, the more villagers you kill you will send every boy, cousin, relative and extended family to the talent and out of revenge so what are 15,000 troops going to do with 90,000 troops couldnt do . A longwinded way of answering your question to say the only way this will be resolved is in islam a bad. By that i mean other nations. There was one negotiation so far. 2014, the New York Times you had afghanistan, representatives of the taliban, it is not fear because i heard different stories, we did not have anybody in the room. The chinese were in the room but what is interesting, one table representing afghanistan, whose family i was said to be close to which representing afghanistan. On the other side of the table on behalf of the taliban and, his younger brother, the head of the talent and. They were once allies. They were in the same mujahedin political party, with chief negotiators for separate countries. In 2017, in april this year, he told me i was i talked a couple times on my own about this and that and to myself, i didnt bring this up with him directly, then did later, you were negotiating across tables as enemies but you told me you were talking about what you were talking about twice so you have to negotiate this but under the table. There is that part of afghanistan that no one can know so it is a combination of serious negotiations and realize the afghans realize they have to resolve this and can resolve this themselves if enough pressure is put on them and that would come from pakistan as well as the us. It is a crucial question to what extent pakistans intelligence influences actions of radical islamists and afghanistan. You have given a lot of thought to this relationship. What conclusions have you reached . You have all noticed this is very delicate. In the last week there has been a case of the stories of the cia tracking the boreal Coleman Family, jason, canadian, caitlin, american, three children, maybe four. The cia after five years provided intelligence to the Pakistani Army which swooped in in a rescue attempt and killed all the captors and freed the hostages, everybody breathe a sigh of relief, enormously happy they are out and alive and back, in 2017, in the white house, before i went to see the haqqanis, i was advised not to go because they were afraid something would happen to me. As they must say, of all the people i met, the only one who didnt say that, all they said was be safe, no indication i could not go. The Haqqani Network is a terrorist organization so designated by the department of treasury, it is illegal for a United States representative, diplomat to negotiate or talk about a terrorist organization, we are not supposed to you cannot do that under us law. When i step back, in 2015 after our meeting in the white house, a man involved in my kidnapping, British Intelligence agent called me, coming to the us, could he meet me in penn station in new york and he wanted to meet my friend david road also who is in new england with his family so i went and we were meeting and i thought two pakistanis come into this cafe and those are the two men who provided the first visa i was given by pakistan to go back and what are they doing here . We all talked and then he said i understand you have met with the haqqanis, i said yes. They only trusted me and i dont know quite what to do about that and he acknowledged that and i thought i dont think i dont think i will be allowed back into pakistan after this meeting. November came, keeping informed of the involvement, what we are trying to do, the book that i have written was not one that i intended to write. I wanted to go back and resolve things. I want to talk about that in track of the main story. I had another to trace all the various networks that emanated from pakistan, yemen and saudi arabia, isis because im in a unique position because of my age and background and i go out and do this with those men who are our allies who are today are enemies whether they are in yemen or egypt or pakistan and that is what i was doing. I went back after stephen soughtoff was murdered, i went back frightened when i entered the country and went to the airport my name was on a list because we are not going to let the bird out of the cage a second time, the taliban in beards and black turbines are cleanshaven and everywhere, very sophisticated operation and i went to see my friends who i thought because of my relationship to him that i had been kidnapped and we sat in a hotel and i told him the story and he said no, he told me 180 different. My advices leave very soon because you are involved in is much greater than yourself and it is too dangerous and you must leave. The next day i went to see the former head of the mbs which is the combination cia fbi. I told him my story a bit. He looked at me and said an afghan talking to an american, have you seen the movie 12 years a slave . I dont know what that is. I have been in the middle east for the last year studying a project. Everybody you think is your friend is your enemy. We are not just talking afghans. That is what set me on this very long, dark, murky journey, this labyrinth from which i will never reemerge fully out of which came this book. Then as i was finishing up at, because i met with the haqqanis and this opportunity opened up to me and they began to ask me or talk to me if you will about how angry they were, certain elements of the Bowe Bergdahl exchange, i didnt quite understand what they were talking about, this was bigger than that. This was something much greater and i had a role to help others and i am thinking this opportunity came and i explained it to everybody and i met with this former British Intelligence agent, pakistan got wind of this, i told everybody this story, a member from the state Department Said we would welcome the visa application from pakistan and the fusion sale, and administration set up to deal with kidnappings after the death of isis people, and this fusion cell which was to bring in the department of defense and the state department and everybody together, representative to use all of these tribal entities in washington together to work for the betterment and find ways to release americans being held hostage around the world and so i told the same story, the pakistanis would welcome an application from you. There was no way i could be allowed to pakistan to meet with the haqqanis to meet with them as i do without the last time and the pakistani investor to the un. I could do this without the complete and total approval of the isi. Nowhere can come close to the haqqanis without them. Joshua boyle and his family were taken by the Haqqani Network and held by the Haqqani Network. What is your take on the story . Was this a political or commercial kidnapping . I will tell you what i know. I know a little bit dont know a lot but i will tell you what i know and let you decide what you think on this. What we know publicly, joshua boyle married very awkward background, he was married to the sister of a man who was in guantanamo for having killed two americans and his sister who was very outspoken, nothing wrong with that but i read somewhere there bin laden somehow was involved. I asked myself what in the world is a man taking a pregnant woman into afghanistan, there is no journalist who would dare go into the country without afghan guides to go to a village where you are completely protected where the taliban and are everywhere is to me in comprehensible. Didnt he described himself as a pilgrim . Guest yes. But there is another man, there have been others who tried that and they are not around. Even if you are a pilgrim you are a commodity and also a commodity meaning something else. Maybe that he saw himself this way and his wife was this way and i thought it was awkward and strange. I still do, a bit. They wanted to do that. No one seems to know where they were. Then donald trump more than any other president in his speech announcing his afghan policy really criticized publicly pakistan and did not mince words about its ties to terrorist groups and we have been diplomatic in our statements over the years, fullcourt press on this that it is interesting, within a month pakistan received 12. 5 billion since 9 11 and allied with the United States since 1954 would want to lose this relationship even though pakistan and china are focused, that they would want to lose this tie to the United States. And so it is not unreasonable to think that perhaps it is interesting the cia would with few weeks of this would do it for five years, provide this information to the isi in the 1980s in 1990s and one that bothered me was the director asked me, i complained on the side, in morocco shooting this movie it is not like afghanistan, magnificent mountains, i convinced her, go back, find a camera crew, take people to the air and shoot footage and we can do something. I went back and found people to do this and got a phone call from the cia advisor who said dont do anymore. I convinced the director i can do it. I took my friend in the Pakistani Army to do it. I said to myself he had been out of the cia for 20 years, going to call his friend in the Pakistani Army and they are going to take a helicopter over afghanistan and he is that close that they can shoot this footage, my goodness. This tie that i thought might have ended with, 20 years later, certainly very strong so that is my way of saying the links are still there. What they said to me was it could certainly be using me, they wanted the Coleman Family to allow the parents to see their grandchildren and allow me to bring them over to see them but i would have to bring a letter from the Us Government which means something official. With the last three weeks that is what we were trying to do so it is difficult for me to believe entirely that the haqqanis would allow any of their men to kill a girl. About this. Children being born in a baked mud hut in a compound in tribal areas on the Afghan Border cannot do this alone, they have to do this with mothers, with women to nurture those children and provide whatever needs to be provided and a bond develops between them. It is difficult to believe one child was murdered am a terrible thing to contemplate, but i am confused as to exactly what really happened based on the information that i know and what i have been involved in is so complex, so murky just like the whole world of political kidnapping to think the haqqanis because they were concerned about welfare of the children, bring the grandparents to see them, that they would be according to the us tribal area on the afghan pakistan border primarily shia area but there are sunnis, like catholic and protestant in islam and the cia could do that. It is very murky. That is my only way to answer the question but the Pakistani Army and the haqqanis have been together since the 1970s and will continue to be in the role of the United States remains to me extremely murky as well. Host journalism is Risky Business and your stories and the risk that you take personally is inspiring to all of us but we are out of time at this point so i apologize for not getting to everyones questions and i want to thank jere van dyk on behalf of World Affairs for joining us this evening and thank you for your terrific questions and also wanted to invite you to get jere van dyks book or both books, the captivate the trade and please do come and ask the questions you have i didnt get a chance to ask. Thank you very much. [applause] [inaudible conversations] you are watching cspan2, booktv. Television for serious readers. [applause]
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