NYT bribed Taliban guards to free its abducted reporter in Afghanistan: ABC

Lahore, June 25 (ANI): A leading US daily bribed the Taliban several times to set free one its staffers and his associate, who were kidnapped in Afghanistan last year, it has been learnt.

According to the ABC News, The New York Times purportedly bribed Taliban guards through a private security agency to free one its reporters, David Rohde and his Afghan colleague.

Sources said the Boston-based American International Security Corporation, which has close ties with the CIA, bribed certain Taliban guards several times to set free the journalists.

The agency also planned a rescue mission to help the reporters to flee. Later all the captives scaled a wall to escape, The Daily Times reports.

Rohde, along with a local reporter, Tahir Ludin, and their driver, Asadullah Mangal, was abducted outside Kabul, Afghanistan, on November 10, 2008 while he was researching on a book.

Rohde was part of The Times's reporting team that won a Pulitzer Prize this spring for coverage of Afghanistan and Pakistan last year. (ANI)