An Australian TV anchor has been hailed as an “absolute boss” after receiving a surprise call from the Taliban while she was live on-air. An Afghan-born BBC anchor received a startling call from a Taliban spokesman while reporting live on air after the extremist group toppled the government. Yalda Hakim, whose family fled Afghanistan on horseback when she was a baby before settling in Australia in the mid-1980s, kept her poise when Suhail Shaheen dialed her mobile phone while conducting an interview. She quickly switched gears, transferred Shaheen to a loudspeaker, and peppered the rep with questions as the Taliban declared victory in Kabul 20 years after being removed from power by US-led forces.
“OK, we have the Taliban’s spokesman, Shail Shaheen, on the line. Mr. Shaheen, can you hear me?” the Australian journalist said. After confirming he could hear her, Shaheen launched a speech that promised “peace” in the war-ravaged country. “There should not be any confusion; we are sure the people of Afghanistan in the city of Kabul that their properties and lives are safe. There will be no revenge on anyone. We are the servants of the people and this country,” he said.
“Our leadership has instructed our forces to remain at the gate of Kabul, not to enter the city. We are awaiting a peaceful power transfer,” added Shaheen, who did not rule out that public executions and amputation punishments could be used. “I can’t say right now; that’s up to the judges in the courts and the laws. The judges will be appointed according to the law of the future government,” said the spokesman. He also confirmed that the country would return to the extreme version of Islamic Sharia law.
“Of course, we want an Islamic government,” Shaheen said during the half-hour interview. He also claimed the Taliban would respect women’s rights and allow them access to education. Hakim’s colleagues praised her for maintaining her composure when she got the surprise call and probing interview. “Have never witnessed anything quite like what happened in studio this morning, pointing our guest mic at @BBCYaldaHakim’s mobile phone as a Taliban spokesman rang it in the middle of her juggling another live interview,” a BBC TV floor manager said on Twitter. “Timing is everything; there was no rearranging this,” he added. Broadcaster Aasmah Mir wrote: “That BBC Taliban interview is just mind-blowing. All 32 minutes of it. Yalda Hakim is an absolute boss.”
Who is Yalda Hakim?
Hakim was only six months old when her family fled to Pakistan during the Afghan-Soviet War. Her father was an architect and avoided conscription, so he put Hakim and her mother on one horse and her older brother and sister on another, leading them out of the country on foot. They walked for ten days before arriving in Pakistan, where they stayed for two years before being sponsored by an Australian couple to move to NSW. She attended Macarthur Girls High School in Parramatta before studying journalism at Sydney’s Macleay College. She worked for the SBS before moving to London and taking up a role with the BBC in 2012.
She is a star in Afghanistan, which she visited for the first time in 2008. Hakim interviewed then-Afghanistan president Hamid Karzai in 2013, has received the United Nations Media Peace Prize, and now fronts the flagship BBC program Impact. In 2018, she told Women’s Weekly her first stop in any country she was visiting as a reporter was the salon. She revealed that the unique strategy allowed her to tap into what often-repressed women are experiencing.
“I get my hair done, they’re getting their hair done, they take off their headscarves, and I suddenly see what’s going on under the scarves – peroxided blonde hair and incredible dazzling outfits,” she said. “Then they talk about everything from how they’re dealing with motherhood to marriage, politics, their place in society and what’s going on, and their struggles and challenges. That helps me tap into something my male colleagues could never do.”
What’s the latest on Afghanistan?
US President Joe Biden broke days of silence Tuesday on the chaotic American pullout from Afghanistan, doubling down on his decision as he fired scorching criticism at the country’s former Western-backed leadership for failing to resist the Taliban. “I stand squarely behind my decision. After 20 years, I’ve learned the hard way that there was never a good time to withdraw US forces,” he said in a televised address from the White House. As images of chaos and desperation beamed in from Kabul, where American soldiers were trying to mount an evacuation from the airport while Taliban fighters flooded the city, Biden said: “The buck stops with me.”
Brushing off criticism that the evacuation is a debacle, Biden said the priority is to stop a war that had expanded far beyond its initially modest goals of punishing the Taliban for links to Al-Qaeda after 9/11. “The mission in Afghanistan was never supposed to be nation-building,” he said, vowing that anti-terrorism operations would continue despite the departure of US troops. Biden said “thousands” of US citizens and Afghans who had worked with American forces would be evacuated over the coming days. He threatened a “devastating” military response if the Taliban launched attacks. With the New York Post, AFP, Originally published as an Australian reporter, receives a surprise call from the Taliban while she’s live on-air.
