Soon the crew in the truck was joined by Hazara villagers who had been shoveling snow off the road. All of them wore small square sunglasses and cruel smiles, their heads and throats bundled in scarves. They had smashed our headlight while almost knocking us off the road, and now they wanted money. In his nasal voice, Ajmal excoriated the Hazara as thieves and liars. He was ready to throw down in what would have been a badly uneven fight. Finally I gave the head Hazara my business card and told him to have his boss get in touch with my boss to sort it all out. That seemed to save face for everyone. More important, it saved our asses. When needed, Ajmal could also be cool. This came in handy during another near brawl when he slowly and accidentally ran over a teenager who was in the middle of a curbside fistfight. The fight spilled suddenly into the street, and in an instant we had rolled over the kid's leg. It was badly broken. The crowd that had been watching the fight was now encircling us. A second or two more and all hell would have erupted. Ajmal immediately loaded the wounded youth into the truck, and we took him to a hospital. He liked the near misses. He told me that during one weekend in the Everest he had housed on one floor an American friend who was a former CIA agent turned Thailand-based contractor and on another floor-as a favor to a relative in Pakistan, no questions asked-a Chechen woman on a courier mission to Al Qaeda's safe haven in northwest Pakistan. "If either of tbem had known-can you imagine?" Ajmal asked me with a mischievous smirk. Working with Ajmal involved numerous long road trips. We had driven across windblasted deserts, repaired flat tires and snapped chains on Ajmal's truck as snow closed in on us at the la,aaa-foot Shibar Pass. We had eaten sheep kidneys with Ajmal Naqshbandi (above, on a road opium-growing warlords, wrestled the Afghan army's bureaucracy and coaxed an trip with the author in Afghanistan) ex-Taliban commander turned parliamentarian to confess to his role in destroying the had become a valuable facilitator for giant Buddha statues of Bamiyan Valley. (The Buddha bomber, Mawlawi Mohammed Imany foreign journalists. Islam Mohammedi, was mysteriously gunned down a few months after the story came out, but I suspect it had more to do with the opium trade in Samangan province than Everything has a price in Afghani- with desecrated statues.) We had joked, bickered and haggled with each other. We stan, but the Everest was ruled by.the had traded humorous, boastful and embarrassing stories about our lives. In distant old British maxim "You can never buy guesthouses we shared the haram, or religiously prohibited, pleasures of hashish an Afghan-you can only rent him for a and beer. On one afternoon, with our backs to a canyon wall in southern Afghani- short while at a very high sum." It was stan, we had stared down the barrels of Taliban rifles while doing an interview. a place where a brigadier in the Afghan Although he was a journalist, Ajmal National Police would slip in the front was apolitical. Perhaps because so much door and go upstairs with a girlfriend and of Afghan politics has been reduced to a botde of whiskey while the guard at the simple criminality, he had a hard time see- front gate did his afternoon supplications ing ideas as interesting. The programs and to Allah and oblivious European journal- ideologies of various parties bored him. ists watched Sky TV in the living room. He answered my questions about these One day a cabdriver quadruple subjects as best he could, but ultimately charged a foreign guest for a ride from he didn't care who won. He seemed to the airport. Ajrnal was incensed and find my interest in historical and socio- told the cabbie it was outrageous; dou- logical matters taxing and let me know ble charging unsuspecting new arrivals as much. His passion was dangerous and was enough. The driver was mocking exclusive news. His approach to work and dismissive, so Ajmal punched him was decidedly mercenary: He enjoyed the in the face. The police soon arrived and adventure, building his network of con- dragged Ajma! off to jail. tacts, the status and making money. "It took a week to get out because they On long road trips our conversa- When the Afghan government refused were demanding too much bribe money," tion would frequently, as it often does I to free several insurgents in exchange said Ajmal. Eventually a fair price was among young people, turn to sex. This for an Italian journalist, Naqshbandi agreed on, and Ajmal's brother bailed him banter-private, frank and conducted paid the ultimate price. out. But Ajmal was able to turn his stint in somewhat absentmindedly-revealed the clink into a neh"lorking opportunity, more about the differences, similarities and misunderstandings between our hvO making friends with a hip young under- cultures than did much of my reporting. One time, on the way to Mazar-i-Sharif, cover police officer who had been jailed Ajmal announced, "I am very interested in writing a book about the dancing for a minor indiscretion. Ajmal and I later boys in Afghanistan. One chapter for the different customs of each province.'" In ran into the cop, who was nice enough Afghanistan many "commanders" (read: warlords) have a taste for young boys and to answer my questions (anonymously) teenagers. "They maybe have hvo wives, but they keep these boys like girlfriends," about corruption and police tolerance of said Ajmal. "They buy them clothes, they take them to the wedding parties, and the Chinese brothels. boys dance for them." (Wedding parties are a huge part of social life in Afghani- The incident with the cabbie was not stan, but like all else, they are strictly segregated along gender lines. A big wedding unusual; Ajmal could be a brawler. Once, is really two simultaneous parties: one for men, the other for women.) high in the snow-covered mountains of "What if two men fall in love as equals?" I asked. the Hazarajat, a speeding jeep driven by "Hmm, no. That would not be good." He seemed to find the idea perverse. locals clipped our truck in nearly a head- When Ajmal's strange business contacts passed through Kabul they often wanted on collision. We were creeping up a steep to rampage in the big city. On one long drive he told me how a Kandahari he knew track of packed snow while they were had picked up a young prostitute working the streets in a burka. 58 barreling down. A showdown ensued. "A prostitute in a burka?" I was dumbfounded. "Why (continued on page 161) to blame him as a fool. But it wasn't ernment fell, Italy's 2,000 troops in AJMAL quite that simple. Afghanistan could be pulled out and its (continued frcrm page 58) development projects stopped. The did he stop for that pale-blue sheet and • whole NATO mission in Afghanistan, the not another pale-blue sheet?" The first indication that something ter- government of Afghanistan and, by exten- "She was moving her leg somehow rible had happened was a text message sion, the international war on Islamic abnormally, shaking it, putting it forward from my girlfriend: "A translator named radicalism would take a major hit. a little. It was a sign." Ajmal has been kidnapped in Afghani- But all that was avoided, and two Only in Afghanistan. stan. Hope that's not your guy." Around weeks later Mastrogiacomo stepped off the Hindu Kush the name Ajmal is as a plane in Rome, flashing the victory • common as the name Jason is around sign as if he'd just won a cycling race. The last time I saw Ajmal, in autumn the Rockies. So it seemed unlikely that He had been swapped for five Taliban. A 2006, he was evidently commanding the kidnapped person was my friend prominent left-wing Italian nongovern- more respect among the Afghan press Ajrnal Naqshbandi. I sent him an e-mail, mental organization called Emergency corps. It was also apparent that he was but he didn't write back. had managed the delicate negotiations getting more involved in the dangerous As the story evolved, things began to and prisoner swap; the first images of a business of fixing high-risk interviews. look worse: The Taliban had captured liberated Mastrogiacomo were taken at When the Taliban regrouped after the an alleged British spy traveling with Emergency's hospital in Lashkar Gar, the 2001 invasion it was difficult to make two locals in the southern Afghan prov- capital of Helmand province. contact with them. For several years ince of Helmand. But the alleged spy But Ajmal-who was supposed to be access to the insurgents was controlled turned out to be Daniele Mastrogia- part of the deal-was still being held by by a handful of rival fixers, most of como, a stocky 52-year-old correspon- the Taliban. Surprisingly, the man who whom were themselves ex-Taliban. One dent for the Italian daily La Repubblica. brokered Mastrogiacomo's release- ofthese men, Nawab Moman, traded in I had met Mastrogiacomo over morn- Ramatullah Hanefi, the director of Emer- his turban and robes for dark tailored ing cornflakes several years back at the gency's hospital in Helmand-was now in suits and became a journalist for Tolo Everest. Ajmal frequently worked with the custody of the Afghan secret police, TV, Afghanistan's first private televi- him; months before the abduction Ajmal accused of being a Taliban operative. sion station. Tolo's studios were across had told me he had new and important Two weeks after Mastrogiacomo's from the Everest, and true to form, Taliban contacts in Helmand. release the Taliban decapitated Ajmal. Ajmal made friends with Moman and La Repubblica soon confirmed that Shortly after that, Emergency, which did special favors for him, such as scor- Mastrogiacomo and Ajmal had gone had demanded Hanefi's release, closed ing whiskey through NATO connections south to interview Taliban commanders, its entire Afghan operation: three major and allowing the short-term afternoon most likely Mullah Mohammed Dadul- surgical hospitals, each with scores of use of empty rooms at the guesthouse. lah, who was then the insurgents' chief beds and multiple operating theaters, In turn Moman began to let Ajmal in on military leader. Ajmal and I had done a major maternity ward and 25 fully the Taliban~access trade. a similar interview with Taliban fighters equipped health clinics. Over seven In the Middle East conflict zones, only two hours from where Mastrogia- years Emergency had treated 1.5 million one of war reporting's dirty secrets is como had disappeared. This was all too Afghans with free high-quality health that access to insurgents is often sold close for comfort. care. In war-ravaged Afghanistan these for cash. Sometimes the price is low. About a week and a half into the drama resources were desperately needed. To interview and film Taliban fighters, the Taliban released a video of Mastro- I paid $800 to cover transportation, giacomo calmly but intensely imploring • police bribes and fees to Moman and Mghan president Hamid Karzai and the To understand this debacle and to bid my Ajmal. But ambitious and flush BBC Italian government for help. Off camera, friend good-bye, I returned to Afghanistan. and Korean TV crews, among others, someone prompted Mastrogiacomo to say The story I discovered there, the story of regularly dished out thousands of dol- more. Ajmal's unmistakably nasal voice his murder and the incompetence that sur- lars for face time with the bad guys. was translating. The person I knew best rounded it, embodies everything wrong In addition to seeking interviews, in Afghanistan was shackled in a mud hut with this famously forgotten war and for- journalists also look to buy video. On somewhere near the Pakistan border. gotten country. The truth is never easy to my most recent trip to Afghanistan, Next came news that the third man, pin down, particularly in Afghanistan. The my colleague filmmaker Ian Olds and Mastrogiacomo's local guide and driver, last time I had worked with Ajmal he men- I reviewed exclusive footage from the Sayed Agha, had been peremptorily tioned his new contacts in Helmand. They guerrilla leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar killed. Soon thereafter another video was were, he said, facilitated by "Emergency, of Hezb-e-Islami, as well as some Al released. It shows Mastrogiacomo and the Italian hospital," in Lashkar Gar. Then, Qaeda-shot combat footage showing the Ajmal kneeling, bound and blindfolded. in October 2006, Emergency negotiated corpses of U.S. Navy Seals along with Around them stand a dozen Taliban the release of Gabriele Torsello, an Italian war booty such as American GPS devices fighters. The camera pans over to Agha photojournalist and Muslim convert who and M4 rifles. And though it rarely as he is forced down and decapitated on had been kidnapped by the Taliban. makes it on the air, footage of brutally the rough desert ground. Then Mastro- Ajmal had never been to Helmand and slow beheadings is always for sale. Some- giacomo stands weeping in front of the had no family or friends there. Accord- one even offered to sell me the video of camera, begging for his life. ing to his younger brother Munir, whom Ajmal's decapitation. They said his killer The Taliban demanded an exchange of I met several times in Kabul, the interview wore a gray tunic and Ajmal struggled five of their imprisoned commanders for in Helmand was supposed to be with Tal- to the very end. I declined. the two remaining captives. An interna- iban supreme military commander Dadul- In Afghanistan this is how much of tional crisis began to unfold. Italy's center- lah. The rendezvous was reportedly set the news is made-like sausage from left government, which had already up by Sami Sharaf, one of those Taliban- grisly floor scraps collected during back- pulled its troops from Iraq, was on the connected fixers at the top of the Afghan room deals wherein the spectacle of war brink of collapse. If Mastrogiacomo and press-corps food chain. Ajmal's main con- is bartered for cash over glasses of Ajmal could not be freed, Italy's prime tact in Helmand was Hanefi, the adminis- Johnnie Walker. It was just such a deal minister, Romano Prodi, could face a no- trator at Emergency's hospital. This set of that led Ajmal into the heart of Taliban confidence vote over the increasingly connections would bridge the infinite politi- country. When it all went bad it was easy unpopular war in Mghanistan. Ifthe gov- cal distance between Kabul and Helmand. 161 I meet Sharaf at the Gandamack, a (nonbelievers) and foreigners but also the with Taliban commanders in eastern Kabul lodge named for the fictional Tajiks, Uzbeks, Hazara and other ethnic Afghanistan, but Helmand was the deep 19th century address of author George groups populating Afghanistan'snorthern south, the tribal Pashtun heartland. MacDonald Fraser's literary hero Harry half From their firstdays to the present the Many of Ajmal's friends see Sharaf's Flashman. Sharaf's manner is agitated. Taliban have received covert support from shifty behavior as proof that he set up He refuses to be videotaped or to com- elements in Inter-ServicesIntelligence,the Ajmal and the high-priced Italian to be ment directly about Ajmal. In fact, he Pakistaniintelligenceagency.Pakistan uses kidnapped. After all, only the Italians agrees to the interview only because sus- them to keep its neighbor weak. pay. Kidnap an American and all you picions about his possible role in Ajmal's "I was the only one who could report get is a corpse and a Taliban snuff film. death are steadily mounting among from Kandahar," brags Sharafbetween But an Italian could be a useful chip Ajmal's male relatives. Sharafhas missed hurried gulps of tea. As a freelancer in for the Taliban, or so go the conspiracy the important ros cheZ, a ceremony on the and out ofTaliban-controlled southern theories circulating in Kabul. Although 40th day of mourning. It was Sharaf who Afghanistan, he did a thriving business I dislike the beady-eyed Sharaf, that sce- first told Ajma!'sfamily about the kidnap- selling footage to CNN and other net- nario doesn't make sense, nor is there ping, even before it was in the press. works during the Taliban regime. This much evidence to support it. To plan so Sharaf got his start in reporting during was a time and place in which photog- elaborately would have been too risky for the last days of the Soviet-backed regime raphy was largely illegal, but Sharaf Sharaf and unnecessary for the Taliban. of Dr. Mobammad Najibullah. When was allowed to sell video. He tells me On the morning of March 5-with the Najibullah fell to the U.S.-backed muja- he split his time between Pashtun areas interview in Helmand arranged-Mas- hideen, civil war broke out among the of Pakistan and Taliban country across trogiacomo and Naqshbandi set out. victors. From the ensuing chaos emerged the border. In Pakistan he studied jour- Just before leaving, Ajmal told his father the millenarian zealotry of the Taliban. By nalism and then went to study sharia, and wife that he was going to research 1996 these insurgents controlled most of Islamic law. To survive, says Sharaf, women's rights in Herat, a relatively southern Afghanistan. Made up of poor "you needed good connections. Any- safe city in western Afghanistan. But to rural Pashtuns-the largest ethnic group thing is possible with connections." his younger brother Munir, he gave the in Afghanistan-the Taliban have always That's what Ajmal was always after, real details of his trip: They were meet- been as much an ethnic movement asa reli- particularly new connections with the ing a trustworthy Taliban commander gious one. They see as their enemies kafrrs Taliban. He had done well building links iri Helmand; everything would be fine. It was Ajmal's custom to tell his wife and father a cover story but to call Munir at the last minute with the truth. Reached by phone in Rome, Mastro- giacomo recounts the story as he expe- rienced it. He knew nothing about how the interview was arranged and simply trusted AjmaL (Ajmal and I had often rubbed each other the wrong wayover this issue: I would demand to know exactly how everything worked, and he would testily push back when he felt I was pry- ing too much.) At dawn Mastrogiacomo and Ajmal flew from Kabul to Kandahar. There they met Sayed Agha, a local man from Lashkar Gar, Helmand, the next province over. The three of them drove to Lashkar Gar, where Mastrogiacomo and J\imal waited two hours in the offices of an Afghan NCO while Agha went to fix the final details for the interview.Then all of them drove into the desert. Just outside town,in Nad Ali, they picked up a boy. As Mastrogiacomo later put it, "Agha seemed to know him." They trav- eled a short way over a bridge and turned right, through poppy fields. Then the road dead-ended. Realizingtheir mistake, they turned back, whereupon they met six armed Taliban riding three motorbikes. "Immediately they arrested us," says Mastrogiacomo in his thick Italian accent. "They tied our hands with weak rope and blindfolded us. We are so confused. I am demanding, 'What is this? It is a mistake! Weare here for an interview. It is normal. Why this?'" In his indignation he broke free. "The rope was weak. I demanded to speak with someone in charge. And then they just beat us with Kalashnikovs. My head is cut bad. And now Ajmal is say- ing, 'They are serious. Daniele, be quiet. They think we are spies.' At that point he becomes very scared." After five hours in one house the three To Mastrogiacomo's horror his captors captives were moved (or several hours proceedt;d to decapitate Agha. The video through the desert, with Mastrogiacomo of his murder was later sold to journalists locked in the trunk of Agha's car. Next and broadcast on Italian television. In it they met a truck filled with Taliban. "Like one sees Ajrnallooking down into the rag 15 or 16, and from there we travel many across his eyes while Mastrogiacomo tips hours through the desert down toward his head back to peer under his blindfold the Pakistani border," Mastrogiacomo toward Agha. The Taliban tied Agha's says. After that the hostages were moved head to his body and dumped his corpse every night. in the Helmand River. News ofthe mur- Just after the three men went missing, der caused Agha's pregnant young wife Sharaf found Munir and explained that to lose her unborn child. Ajmal had heen kidnapped. Sharaf said he had learned this through Samiullah • Yousoufzai, a Pakistani journalist close I meet Sayed Agha's brother and brother- to Dadullah. The news broke the next in-law when they come to Kabul to visit day when the Taliban issued a statement Ajmal's father, a rugged old mujahideen from somewhere in Pakistan. vet named Ghulam Haidar Naqshbandi. As Mastrogiacomo explains to me, for We sit in the second-story guest room of the first eight days of their captivity he the Naqshbandi home, a small walled was together with Ajmal and Agha. "But compound on the dusty plains of south- it was hard to talk," he says. "Every time west Kabul. Yellow afternoon light filters we spoke English the Taliban would through the room's high square windows demand to know what we were speak- while the shadows of pigeons circling ing about. Ajmal would say, 'Shut up. outside flitter across the guests. As the Don't talk. They really think you are a light fades, Agha's family tell their story. spy.' He was like, '1 don't understand. As soon as Mastrogiacomo's party dis- Something has changed in the Taliban appeared in southern Helmand, Agha's policy.' " Though chained together, the family sent out several uncles and cous- men were psychologically isolated. "The ins to search for their relative. Once Taliban were always soft, then strong, it was clear that Agha was dead, they then soft." looked for his body, eventually find- The Taliban occasionally beat their ing their headless kinsman in a shallow hostages with hoses. During the first grave by the river. days the Taliban accused them all of "In one of the villages where they were being spies. But then other commanders held, people saw Ramatullah Hanefi," showed up, among them Haji Lalai, a says Agha's brother-in-law Khan Zaman, close lieutenant of Dadullah's. The Tal- referring to the administrator from iban finally seemed to accept that their Emergency who fixed the interview and hostages really were journalists. "They managed the negotiations. "Ramatul- said, 'It's okay. We know you are not a lah went to where they were held, and British spy. You're ajournalist, and many the villagers saw Sayed and Ramatullah Taliban have called to say that Ajmal is argue. After that the Taliban separated okay, he is not a spy,'" recounts Mastro- Sayed from Ajmal and Daniele. Then, giacomo. But suspicion continued to turn a day later, they killed him because he on Agha. "J\imal kept saying, 'It's not us, knew too much." This account seems but they don't know about him.''' implausible. When I run it past Mas- In fact, Agha had worked briefly with trogiacomo, he dismisses it. Perhaps the the British. A Western intelligence con- elders in southern Helmand told Agha's tractor with regular oversight respon- relatives what they wanted to hear: Their sibility for the National Directorate of relative died defiantly, confronting the Security, or NDS, part of the Afghan man who had allegedly sold him out. secret police, told me he was under the impression Agha had passed information • to Afghan government agents. On Monday, March 19, five days after On March 13 the Taliban separated Agha's murder, the Taliban told Mas- Agha from the other two. A day later trogiacomo and Ajmal they were to be they brought in a young Taliban with freed. "They broke our chains," says a video camera to record a statement Mastrogiacomo. "Ajmal washed and got from Mastrogiacomo. "He was a nice new clothes. Then I washed and got guy who spoke a little English," says new clothes. We were put in a car and Mastrogiacomo. "When it was over we brought to the Helmand River. We got chatted, and then they said, 'Wait, some there maybe about noon or one, but it other people are coming. We want to took several hours of moving and stop- make another video. We have to tie you ping. Then we found a big group of Tal- up again.' Then they brought out Agha, iban and local elders, maybe 50 or 60 and someone read a paper. Ajmal started people. The Taliban were shooting their to cry, saying, 'They have condemned guns in the air to celebrate. When Ajmal us to death. They will kill Sayed today, and I were separated we said, 'Okay. me tomorrow, you the next day.'" The We'll be arrested by the NDS when we Taliban had given Italy and Karzai three get back, but that is normal. They will days to make a deal. need to talk to us, but then we will be free.' We talked about how I would help trogiacomo case began only on March Ajmal get to Italy, because after this it 6, when Italian prime minister Romano would be impossible for him to do his Prodi asked Strada to facilitate nego- work. And we hugged. Wewere like, 'See tiations with the Taliban. Strada in turn you tonight in Lashkar Gar or maybe asked Hanefi to contact the insurgents. the next day in Kabul.' Ajmal went off Emergency denies that either the orga- one way. I met Ramatullah Hanefi. He nization or Hanefi had relations with the seemed anxious to go, likemaybe another Taliban before the kidnapping. group might kidnap us again. And we go To anyone familiar with Afghanistan, off in the other direction in two cars full that assertion doesn't ring true. Emer- of elders, for protection. In maybe two gency had already managed negotia- hours we are in the hospital." tions for the release of another Italian Around five or six that evening Mas- journalist, in November 2006. Elements trogiacomo and Hand! reached the of the NGO's local staff certainly had a Emergency compound in Lashkar Gar modus vivendi with the insurgents, who, and were greeted by Gino Strada, a after all, control most of Helmand prov- surgeon and Emergency's founder and ince and have networks of spies and sup- executive director. Mastrogiacomo was porters in Lashkar Gar. On at least one checked by medical staff, took phone occasion U.S. forces raided the hospital calls from his family and several Italian to extract wounded Taliban. politicians and then began to write an To understand this story one must account of his capture. The next morn- grasp something of Emergency's ori- ing he would fly to Kabul. gins and the charismatic nature of Gino While writing, Mastrogiacomo asked Strada. ]n 1989 Strada began working in Strada about AjmaLStrada explained he Afghanistan, Rwanda, Somalia and Bos- was safe in another room, taking pho- nia. In 1994 he founded Emergency; his tographs for the Emergency website. eloquent, down-to-earth lectures were Another Emergency staffmember subse- widely broadcast, and money flowed quently told Mastrogiacomo that Strada in. Since then the organization has per- had misspoken; Ajmal was somewhere formed thousands of lifesavingoperations else, maybe on his wayto Kabulbut not at free of charge on civilianwar victims. the hospital. Later, on Italian television, Over the past 14 years Emergency has Strada explained that he had wrongly become a more political version of Doc- assumed a young driver was AjmaL In tors Without Borders. Rather than just reality Ajmal was either still under Tal- rendering humanitarian service in war iban control or soon to be retaken by zones, it actively protests war. Strada's them. The infuriated Agha and Naqsh- tale of adventure and altruism has been bandi families are convinced Ajmal was the subject of several-documentaries. His at the hospitaL It's unclear whether he memoir, Green Parrots, sold almost half a was retaken from the hospital or never million copies. released at the Helmand River, but it Emergency's lifeblood is public rela- seems likelyhe was never released. tions. But spinning complicated bad news The next day at dawn Hanefi-the is not its strength. It prefers the simpler man who had set up the interview moral tale: photos of smilingAfghan chil- turned kidnapping-was picked up by dren maimed by old Soviet mines but the NDS. A few days later Munir and regaining their livesthanks to your dona- Ajmal'sfather received a phone call from tions and Emergency's hard work. The the Taliban. They put Ajmal on. He told murder of SayedAgha and AjmalNaqsh- his father that he was "in the same place bandi-and the apparent connection in as before" and that the family needed to these crimes of Emergency's representa- lean on Karzai In a few days the Taliban tive Hanefi-sent the organization into a released another video. "Youhave forgot- panic. Strada and Emergency professed ten the Afghanjournalist," said Ajmal in Hanefi's innocence. They demanded an angry appeal to Karzai. "Youare wor- his immediate release and attacked the ried only for the foreigners, and you are Afghan government. After staging pro- not worried for Afghans."Again, Ajmal's tests in Rome and Milan, Emergency back wasto a mud walLThen, on AprilS, even suggested it might have to leave Easter, after two more weeks in Taliban Mghanistan and accused the Karzai gov- custody, he was killed, a full day before ernment of managing a secret campaign his captors' own deadline. to drive it out. Afghan pride, nationalism and revenge • culture being what they are, the govern- What happened at the Helmand River? ment did not bend to the great surgeon's What was the plan for the prisoner wilLIn fact, the Afghan president's office exchange? Was Ajmal supposed to be felt betrayed. The two sides dug in, and at the hospital? Emergency and Strada things went from bad to worse. refuse to say.Instead, Emergency spokes- On April 10, two days after Ajmal's people give vague, legalistic, often murder, the normally reticent head of implausible answers. When I press for an the NDS, Amirullah Saleh, told an Italian interview with Strada, I am told he is too daily that Emergencywasan organization upset to talk to the media. According to that "supports terrorists and alsoAIQaeda Emergency, its involvement in the Mas- men in Afghanistan," which Emergency has denied. The next day, Emergency lots of information. This had been briefly manl-went ahead with the plan, or a pulled its international staff except for a reported in the press in January, but version of it. It had five other prisoners. skeleton crew of five.A series of increas- until Hanif refused to leave his cell the In place of the missing Hanif the NDS ingly bitter press releases charged that news of his confessions was largely dis- offered Mansoor Ahmad Dadullah, for-profit medical clinics in Helmand missed as Mghan government lies. Had Mullah Dadullah's younger brother. were pushing for Emergency's ouster so the reported snitch Hanifbeen liberated The man who had to explain all this as to scoop up its clients (never mind that at the Helmand River, the reunion with to the Taliban at the final moment was many of those patients have nothing with his robed and bearded brethren would Emergency's director, the very unlucky which to pay). Emergency later claimed not have been a happy one. Ramatullah Hanefi. the Mghan government had intention- By all reports the negotiations were Left holding the bag, Hanefi did his allydriven out the group so Karzaicould chaotic. The Italians and Karzai were best. Since Karzai and the Italians came better cover up the fact that British and poorly coordinated. In consideration of through with most of their promises, the Americanforceswere killingciviliansdur- frequent assassination attempts, Karzai Taliban gave up their most valuablechip, ing their bombing offensivesagainst the lives as a prisoner in the presidential Mastrogiacomo. Perhaps this explains Taliban in Helmand and Kandahar. But palace. He didn't check with the rest of why Mastrogiacomo spent so much other NGOs also report civilian casual- his government or with the NDS. Every- time waiting at the river before he was ties, and Karzai himself has repeatedly thing had to be kept secret and in par- released, to allow for last-minute nego- condemned NATO'skillingof civilians. ticular hidden from the Americans, who tiations between Hanefi and the Taliban The war of words commanders. finally got so hot Severaldays after that the Afghan the exchange, Da- police raided Emer- dullah sent to an M- gency's Kabul hos- ghan news agency pital, demanding an audio recording the passports of the in which he ex- NGO's remaining plained that he had foreign staff. The demanded Hanif five Europeans were but got his brother extracted under dip- Mansoor Ahmad lomaticimmunity by instead. Thus, he the Italian ambassa- would continue to dor and taken to the hold Mastrogia- airport. Emergency como'sinterpreter. then suspended its Mghanistan opera- • tions.In late Maythe One last question government told the remains: Why did NGO it was free to the Taliban kill stay if it was willing Ajmal 24 hours be- to obey Mghan law; fore their own otherwise Emergen- deadline? A few cy's facilities would weeks after Mas- be given to other trogiacomo's re- agencies.Emergency lease two French dispatched a few nationals and three more press releases, Mghans were kid- and then Strada napped while lapsed into a strange doing aid work in self-imposedsilence. Nimroz province. The U.S. rounded • on Karzai, con- In the end, what demning the deal seems to have hap- and making a for- pened is this: The mal complaint to Taliban wanted the Rome. Chastened, government to release five high-profile adamantly oppose deals for hostages. Karzai told journalists he "regretted" prisoners; key among them was a top Apparently the Karzai government, the deaL Shortly thereafter Karzai held Taliban spokesman known by his nom notoriously corrupt as well as incompe- a press conference in which he said de guerre, Dr. Mohamed Hanif. Hanif tent and disorganized,overlookedHanif's such prisoner exchanges "will never be had recently been captured while cross- cooperation.When at the last moment the repeated." The Mghan foreign minis- ing from Pakistan. The Afghan govern- NDS was confronted by the dilemma of ter, Dr. Rangin Dadfar Spanta, told ment, under intense pressu.re from the a cooperative high-value prisoner who journalists that even if he himself were Italians, was ready to make a deaL But didn't want to be freed, it decided to punt. kidnapped, he would not want any Tal- when the day of exchange came, one of "I think they said, 'Oh fuck, what do we iban exchanged for his liberty. The the prisoners, believed to be Hanif, do now? Carryon and hope nobody message was clear: no more deals. refused to be freed. W'hy? notices,'"saysthe Westerncontractor who But other pressures were building When pressed about 'what had hap- works regularly with the NDS. behind the scenes.The double standard- pened, the head of the NDS said one The strategy had been that the five "Youare worried only for the foreigners, prisoner had "refused to go." The truth imprisoned Taliban would be freed and and you are not worried for Mghans," wasalready apparent to those wholooked their identities verified. Then Mastrogi- as Ajmal had put it-was untenable. The closely: Hanif had broken under inter- acomo and Ajmal would be released. So two main Mghan journalist associations rogation and given the NDS and NATO the NDS-short one top Taliban infor- and several prominent politicians were 165 mounting a campaign; supporters of Ghulam is more open to his son's foreign TVjournalists, but he has maintained con- Ajmal camped in front of the presidential friends. Between stifled tears and under- tact with the insurgents. palace. The Committee to Protect Jour- stated tirades against the Italians and the I meet with Moman several times in nalists beat the bushes, and soon faxes, government, he tells his story. Kabul. In a quiet shaded corner of a e-mailsand letters from around the world "After the Taliban called I told Karzai hotel garden he explains what happened. poured in on the Afghan government. about the new deadline," Ajmal's father "Pakistani intelligence called Dadullah Shortly after Karzai's no-deal pledge, says as I listen and sip green tea. "He and told him, 'No deal. Just kill the pris- the Taliban called Munir, telling him they had been out of the country, and when oner now.''' Moman had heard this from would kill his brother on Monday if the he came back I went to the palace. I a spokesman linked to Taliban leader government didn't come through. And told Karzai he wasjust a tool of the for- Mullah Gmar and the Taliban leader- because Ajmal was now a cause ceU~bre, eigners. He cleared everyone out of the ship in Quetta, Pakistan. "The Taliban the Taliban wanted three prisoners. Des- room and said, 'You are right. I do not and Pakistani intelligence saw the big perate, Ajmal's father demanded and have much power.''' The father's grief problems this was creating for Karzai. received a meeting with Karzai on Satur- seemed to have an effect on Karzai. The He would end up looking worse if Ajmal day, April 7. He recounts the meeting to Afghan president called the governor of was killed. It was worth more-a bigger me in his living room one late afternoon. Helmand to try to open channels to the victory than getting three Taliban. That's Ghulam Haidar Naqshbandi had served Taliban, demanding that the NDS find why they killed him." with the famous mujahideen commander out who and where the requested Tal- Ultimately, what really killed AjmaJ Ahmed Shah Masoud and had been one of iban were. Ajmal's father left under the was a perfect storm of political chaos that his main urban operatives during the anti- impression that the insurgents' demands took the form the various interests gave Sovietjihad. That struggle cost Ghulam would be met and his son's life spared. it. The entire debacle is an example of his right leg. Squinty,weathered and with But the next morning, the Taliban put what my friend the intelligence contrac- close-cropped hair and a beard, he is an Ajmal into a truck and drove him to meet tor calls"the fuck-up theory of history." It Afghan nationalist and Sufi fundamental- a man with a knife and another with a is the inverse of the conspiracy theory of ist who runs a traditional family.I never video camera. When they were done they history and explains much of what goes met or even saw any of the Naqshbandi dumped his body in the desert. They on in Afghanistan-a place, a war, where family'smany female members. Munir or simply said the government was not talk- incompetence rules the day.The layers of another young male relative would shoo ing so they killed Ajmal a day early. error upon error have multiple causes. them awaybefore male guests entered or Myfriend NawabMoman, the ex-Taliban If it isn't a basic language barrier, it's the exited the inner sanctum of the mehman turned Tolo TV reporter, had another short-term thinking of foreign powers. If khana, or living room. About a year ago I explanation.Momanhad introduced Ajmal it isn't the factionalismof the Afghan gov- had asked to interview Ghulam about his to the Talibanand had fixed and accompa- ernment or the profound corruption of view of the current situation in Afghani- nied Ajmal and me on the Talibaninterview all its institutions (which means nothing stan, but he declined. we had done a year before the Mastrogia- ever gets done), it's the rosy-eyed foolish- "Sorry," explained Ajmal, who had como kidnapping. He had been a Taliban ness of NGOs that want radio stations for acted as the go-between. "My father says, conunander on the Shomaliplain north of women before anyone in isolated valley 'One spy in the familyis enough.' He told Kabuland had worked in the TalibanMin- A or B even knows what journalism is. me, 'You work with the foreigners, but istry of Information. When the Taliban fell In that regard it's the reason Afghani- not me.'" In the wake of Ajmal's death he reemerged as one of free Afghanistan's stan under NATO is a failure, just as it was under the Soviets and the British before them. As always, the Afghan peo- ple-32 million of them, the Naqshbandi clan among them-pay the price, stuck in underdevelopment, their politicsruled by criminal networks, religious funda- mentalism and foreign powers. The last time I visit the Naqshbandis on the outskirts of Kabul, Munir takes me and two other friends to see Ajmal's grave. We cross a wide dusty boulevard and walk up a low hill into a dense neigh- borhood, where we find a small grave- yard. The ground is barren and penned in by mud-brick homes. A pack of grimy little boys flies kites nearby. Cheap green cloth and plastic cover his grave. At the head some ragged prayer flags whip in the wind. "One of the journalist asso- ciations said they would build a cement monument on the grave," says Munir somewhat absently."It willbe in the form of a notebook and pen because he was a journalist." We stand at the grave, then Munir kneels in prayer. I bow my head and think of my departed friend and of other friends who died young. But I don't feel Ajmal's presence, and the mound of dirt over his·corpse looks strange: It isn't wide and short like Ajmal Naqshbandi. It looks too narrow, too cramped.