Traveling Into Taliban Territory
Written by 60 Minutes producer Draggan Mihailovich.
Every person outside of the television news business had the same reaction: you all must have been out of your minds to go up into the tribal territories of Pakistan, the badlands on the border with Afghanistan where the Taliban and al Qaeda have created a safe haven.
To be honest, at the time we didn't sense any danger. We felt more uneasy driving to the air base where we would take the helicopter up into the mountains. To reach the air base, we had to drive through Peshawar, one of Pakistan's largest cities, a place that has been plagued by Taliban kidnappings, shootings and suicide bombings. A cameraman had been shot in the hand a few weeks earlier while driving through a Peshawar neighborhood.
Once we made it to the air base we were in the hands of the Pakistani military. I didn't detect any anxiety on the part of our five-man team as we loaded up the helicopters. I was not as worried as I was the time we had to drive to a U.S. military base in northern Iraq two years earlier. Then, with IEDs a serious concern on any semi-paved Iraqi road, we had hired a private security firm to drive us in an armored vehicle. I remember strapping on a helmet and body armor for that two-hour trip. This time, the fact that our Pakistani hosts didn't mention anything about wearing a helmet or a flak jacket led us to believe that the helicopters wouldn't be dropping us off in the middle of a raging battle.
Forty-five minutes later we were in Bajaur, a tribal agency adjacent to Afghanistan's violent Kunar Province, and the site of a brutal fight between the Pakistani military and the Taliban last fall. We were quickly split up into trucks for a 10-minute drive to former Taliban compounds. The officers escorting us were quite nervous. As we drove down the main road on the way to the village of Loe Sam, we were told not to look at any of the locals. This seemed a little paranoid but we mostly obeyed.
We arrived at a captured Taliban compound for a look at the maze of tunnels the militants had built over the course of many years. Stepping down into the first tunnel, it quickly became apparent the Taliban fighters didn't suffer from claustrophobia. The entrance was snug. But the outlets which led to other rooms, bunkers and compounds under the ground looked like they had been built for snakes. The Taliban had to crawl on their stomachs for hundreds of meters to reach these rooms and bunkers.
After we had concluded filming inside the compound, we asked to walk around the remnants of the village to record the destruction that had taken place after the bitter battle with the Taliban. The major who was leading our tour turned green. "This is not a good idea," he said. I argued that it would only take a few minutes. He agreed on the condition that the filming only last five minutes and no more. Cameraman Ian Robbie walked down the road with five soldiers covering him and recorded just enough shots. He wanted more time but the soldiers herded him back to our vehicles.
When we returned to the air base outside Peshawar, we hopped out of our helicopters, content with the pictures we had been able to record. As we were unloading our gear, the major shook his head and said, "I was surprised you didn't have any helmets or flak jackets." I was glad he told me that after the visit to Bajaur.
Moments later a large Pakistani Army helicopter landed near us. Then two ambulances pulled up. Soldiers stood around the back of the ambulances for a few minutes. I watched with the major about 30 yards away, fairly certain as to what was going to happen next. Sure enough, soldiers started unloading fallen comrades onto stretchers, their bodies covered by white sheets. A few soldiers came up to pull back the sheets for a last look before the stretchers were put in the back of the ambulances. All together there were five dead Pakistani soldiers. They had been killed in the Swat Valley, only 100 miles from the capital of Islamabad, an area where the Taliban has imposed Islamic law. "As you can see, this is no game," the major said quietly.
The next day, cameraman Ian Robbie and I were scheduled to go with the major up the historic Khyber Pass to film the NATO truck convoys winding their way into Afghanistan. The trucks bring the crucial supplies and ammunition to American forces across the border. The Taliban had ambushed several of the trucks on the Pakistani side of the pass the previous month. But the Pakistani military had sent reinforcements to retake control of the pass and we were assured that the situation was stable.
So I was quite surprised when not one but nine jeeps stuffed with soldiers carrying assault weapons and rocket launchers showed up to escort us up the Pass. Ian looked at me with a puzzled look and said, "Who do they think we are?" We felt it was overkill but we were the guests and had never been up the pass.
It took us a couple of hours to reach the border. Along the way, we saw some remarkable scenes. Teenage boys playing cricket on rocky fields. Five young girls walking in a line, balancing buckets on their heads after they had scooped up water from a raging stream. I wanted to stop to film the girls. The light was perfect. It was straight out of National Geographic. "No chance, let's keep going," the major insisted. We followed orders.
We finally reached an overlook with a perfect view of the pass as it descends into Afghanistan. The convoys were in full swing. They originate from the port city of Karachi, a thousand miles away. Their last stop before entering the pass is Peshawar. Every driver leaves Peshawar in the morning for the 40-mile drive to the checkpoint. No driver wants to be caught on the pass after dark.
Once Ian gave me the signal that he was satisfied with his shots from the overlook, we asked to head down to the border where the trucks were starting to pile up. It would illustrate the volume of traffic and show just how important the pass was to the NATO war effort. The major reluctantly agreed but as our own little convoy made its way down the pass, we abruptly stopped about a half mile from the actual border. This was as far as our hosts were willing to take us. "Film, film, quickly!" the major frantically said. It was clear there had been a slight misunderstanding. The major wanted us to shoot from our SUV. We wanted to get out and walk around. He finally relented but ordered us not to look at anyone. This was an odd request considering we had to see what we were shooting. Ian and I walked up to a curve, a perfect spot to shoot the trucks meandering down the mountain. When we had finished, we turned to walk to our SUV.
We were quite taken aback by what we saw. Our escorts had completely stopped all traffic on our side of the pass. Trucks returning from Afghanistan were backed up for nearly a mile. I felt tremendous guilt. We scurried back to our vehicles so that traffic could get moving again.
We made it back to Peshawar before dark. We thanked the soldiers and then Ian and I were driven back to our hotel in Islamabad. It had been a good day but we were still somewhat amused by the protection we had been provided. There must have been 35 soldiers covering the two of us. We shook our heads. We hadn't seen anything threatening and besides we were told repeatedly that the pass was now in safe hands.
Two weeks later I was sitting in my New York office when someone sent me an e-mail. "Hey, weren't you on the Khyber Pass?" read the message. There was a link. I clicked on it. Up came a picture. A bridge on the Khyber Pass had been blown up by the Taliban, right over the stream where those five girls had been carrying the water buckets on their heads.
Now I understand why were provided with so much security on the Khyber Pass. And I'm quite thankful to the major and all the men who looked after us that day.
Written by Draggan Mihailovich