CBS News
Being held by the Taliban isn’t a tale many survive to tell.
Now two years after his rescue, an American doctor is opening up about the four days he spent with his captors, reports CBS News correspondent Chip Reid.
Kidnapped by the Taliban
“The very first thought that went through my mind is, ‘crap, I can’t believe this is happening,'” Dilip Joseph said.
Joseph made 10 trips to Afghanistan beginning in 2008. As the medical director of Morning Star Development, a non-profit group that trains health care workers in Afghanistan, he spent much of his time in rural villages.
He was well aware of the danger from the Taliban but managed to avoid any direct contact, until his last, horrifying trip.
“There was one from the back, one gunman from the back, and two advancing from directly in front,” Joseph recalled. “We were surrounded, right away.”
After spending the morning of December 5, 2012 at a remote medical clinic, Joseph, his Afghan interpreter and an Afghan colleague were driving down a road, returning to their base in Kabul, when suddenly a man armed with an AK-47 stepped out from a hiding place.
They were driven to a nearby valley, then forced at gunpoint to hike high into the mountains where captors demanded a ransom of $300,000. Joseph knew that was impossible.
“I knew almost certainly that I was going to die, and so I didn’t want to be, excuse the language, pissed off right before I was about to die,” he said.
So he decided to take a chance and talk to his Taliban tormentors through his interpreter. Most responded with threats of violence. But a 19-year-old named Wallakah wanted to talk.
“After hearing my life story, he kind of opened up about his own life story,” Joseph explained. “He said, ‘all I’ve seen in my life is killing people. This is all that I’ve seen from my father.'” Click here to continue reading Kidnapped by the Taliban