ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The two
American women jailed for three months by the Taliban offered thanks to
government and aid officials who helped free them and details about their
time inside Afghanistan at a Friday news conference.
Christian aid workers Heather
Mercer and Dayna Curry described endless hours of waiting inside Taliban
prisons and weeks without any contact with the outside world. Nights were
often chilly, and they could hear the sounds of the U.S. assault on Kabul.
"Our building was shaking,
our prison was shaking, all we could do was sit in the hallway and pray
with all our hearts that the building wouldn't be damaged in any way,"
Mercer said.
They and six other aid workers
— two Australians and four Germans — were swooped up from an Afghan field
Thursday by U.S. special forces helicopters and airlifted to safety.
Mercer called it "a Hollywood
rescue." Curry said that the night the Taliban abandoned the capital city,
they were taken away in a truck, perched atop rocket launchers.
"I just know that it was
through the prayers of the people that we were able to come out alive,"
Curry said.
The aid workers for Shelter
Now International, a German-based group, had been accused by the Taliban
of preaching Christianity, a serious offense under the Taliban's harsh
Islamic rule.
The women said that when
they first were detained, they were thoroughly interrogated. But they were
well-treated in custody, and allowed to pray.
The U.S. helicopters dropped
the aid workers off at Chaklala air base on the outskirts of the Pakistani
capital of Islamabad. All appeared in good health after three months in
captivity — the last two hours of which they spent in a fetid jail in Ghazni,
about 50 miles south of Kabul.
As the Taliban were fleeing
the Afghan capital Kabul early Tuesday, the eight thought they were about
to be freed. Instead, the Taliban put them in a vehicle and began driving
them south.
The Taliban "put us all into
a steel [shipping] container," said Georg Taubmann, one of the freed Germans.
"It was terribly cold. They wanted to lock the container and leave us in
there until the morning. We had no blankets. We were freezing the whole
night through."
On Tuesday morning, the six
women and two men were removed and placed in the jail in Ghazni.
They soon heard bombing by
American war planes. An hour later, an uprising against the Taliban began.
Shortly afterward, bearded gunmen "broke into the prison. They just opened
the doors, and we actually were afraid the Taliban were coming and taking
us to Kandahar. We were really scared," he said.
But the men shouted "Freedom!"
and let the aid workers out onto the streets of Ghazni, where Taubmann
said they were treated like conquering heroes.
"We walked into the city,
and the people came out of the houses and they hugged us and they greeted
us. They were all clapping," he said. "They didn't know there were foreigners
in the prison."
"It was like a big celebration
for all those people," Taubmann said.
The soldiers provided protection
for the aid workers until three U.S. special forces helicopters picked
them up in a field near Ghazni in the pre-dawn hours of Thursday.
Taubmann said the women burned
their burqas — the all-encompassing robes the Taliban requires females
to wear — so that American helicopter could find them in the darkness.
"It was very dramatic right
until the end," he said.
In addition to Taubmann,
Mercer and Curry, the other aid workers are three Germans, Margrit Stebnar,
Kati Jelinek and Silke Duerrkopf; and Australians Diana Thomas and Peter
Bunch.
Also, 16 Afghan employees
of Shelter Now International, who were detained along with the foreigners,
were freed when the northern alliance forces entered Kabul on Tuesday,
said U.N. officials in Islamabad.
The co-director of Shelter
Now International, Joachim Jager, said in Germany that the eight aid workers
planned to take two or three weeks to recover from their ordeal at a place
he did not name.
Tilden Curry was standing
in line at a church supper Wednesday when he heard his daughter was free.
Dayna Curry called her father later and they spoke for about 15 minutes.
"It was overwhelming to hear
her voice," he told Nashville television station WSMV.
President Bush hailed the
dramatic turn of events, and said he spoke Thursday morning with the two
Americans — both natives of central Texas.
"They both said to say thanks
to everybody for their prayers," Bush said at Crawford High School, near
his Texas ranch. "They realized there is a good and gracious God. Their
spirits were high and they love America."
Bush had rejected several
attempts by the Taliban to use the aid workers as bargaining chips.
The Taliban had agreed to
turn over the aid workers through the International Committee of the Red
Cross, two senior administration officials said. The Red Cross was going
to get them into the hands of U.S. troops. But before the exchange could
be accomplished, the anti-Taliban northern alliance overran Ghazni.
The Red Cross said in Geneva
that a local military commander contacted the ICRC, saying he had rescued
the eight foreigners and wanted help transporting them out of Afghanistan.
The aid organization said
it relayed messages between the commander and the U.S., Australian and
German governments, but said it was unable to say which ethnic or military
group the commander belonged to.
Bush said only that the Red
Cross and other "people on the ground facilitated" U.S. troops' ability
to rescue the aid workers.
The president said he had
been worried that the Taliban might put the aid workers in a house that
might be bombed accidentally, and said the U.S. military had been working
on plans for a secret rescue if needed. He did not elaborate.
In Australia, Joseph Thomas,
brother of aid worker Diana Thomas, said Thursday his prayers had been
answered. He also gave credit to the Taliban for their humane treatment
of the aid workers.
"If you look at the facts,
since they've been captive, they've been looked after and they've been
given everything that they have wanted," Thomas told a Sydney radio station.
Taliban Supreme Court judges
had indefinitely postponed the aid workers' trial since they were charged
Aug. 3. The judges said they feared their anger over U.S. airstrikes could
hamper their ability to make a fair ruling.
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