Mastrogiacomo’s ordeal
“They tie our hands behind our backs, bandage our eyes and make us kneel. … But I can see what is going on. I can’t help looking. Our driver, who disappeared for two days and was held in a separate cell, is taken to the middle. The commander announces his sentence, in the name of Islam. He says we are all spies, and that we must die. I see Ajmal weeping. I don’t understand, and I ask him what they said.” He replies sobbing, “They are going to kill us. …

I see the driver being held down by four young men. They press his face into the sand, they cut his throat then go on cutting, they cut his whole head off. He manages to make only a single sound, a long moan. They wipe the knife clean on a tunic, and tie the detached head back on the body, and take it to the river bank and let him go.

I wait, my legs trembling. I stutter something to the commander. I ask him what is happening. I feel myself being held. I imagine myself with my throat being cut, the blood spurting from my arteries, drying in the sand, my body entrusted to the flowing river.” - Mastrogiacomo

Journalist released by Taleban tells of moment he saw his driver beheaded

Mark Alexander