Q & A
Q _ You’ve been up close with some of the world’s worst terrorist leaders, giving you a unique perspective. What should we understand about extremism?
A _ You can’t understand it in isolation. You have to see it in context of the conflict that’s taking place. But sometimes I’ve found that hard to do, especially where there’s been violence to women and children involved.
While you were reporting in Beirut in 1985, AP Bureau chief Terry Anderson was kidnapped by Islamic Jihad and held for almost seven years. Evan Gershkovich is now being held in Russia. How can news organizations keep their staff safe while also offering unvarnished coverage?
By being careful and thinking about their security first. Terry lived in the same general neighborhood as I did, and a few hours after he was taken, a group of Shiite gunmen surrounded me outside my office, but I had followed advice from more experienced local colleagues and hired a bodyguard, a guy named Ali. He courageously faced the six of them down, drawing his own weapon, a 9mm pistol, as he whispered to me to cut and run for it.
I’d always wondered about bodyguards, whether they would put their lives on the line for their client. ali explained that as our office was in a Druze area and there was an uneasy truce at the time between the Shia and Druze factions controlling the area, the risk he took in facing down my would-be kidnappers was a calculated ploy, not a blindly heroic one. My point regarding my near miss is that we keep ourselves safe by being careful.
Do you have suggestions for press covering war zones now?
Plan ahead. When I worked in Iraq and afghanistan it was so dangerous that we all had full-time security advisers. They were all ex-military but what they brought to the party was not firepower but military experience. Every time we left the bureau, we would game plan what to do in any conceivable circumstance if we ran into a Taliban or ISIS roadblock or a roadside bomb.
We always traveled in two cars,
TWO FRONTS Top to bottom: Afghan militia defending against the Taliban in July 2021; Nordland and Segal shortly after diagnosis.
FROM LEFT: COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR; HOSHANG HASHIMI/AFP/GETTY; MARINER BOOKS
local staff in the first one. We went out with two walkie-talkies hidden under the front seats. Foreigners went in car two, car one stripped of all phones, ID cards, cell phones or anything linking the local staff to us foreigners. Protocols such as these are becoming the industry standard and best practice. The more that trend continues to grow, the safer we’ll all be. Planning and calling on local expertise are everything.
Is there an anecdote or episode that particularly stands out for you as a foreign correspondent?
While I was with the NYT we did a story from the village of Jaghori in Afghan
