ST Podcast: 'Enter at your own risk' – Journalists recall post-9/11 assignment in Afghanistan

ST Podcast: ‘Enter at your own risk’ – Journalists recall post-9/11 assignment in Afghanistan

39:50 mins

Synopsis: 2021 marks the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks in the United States.

Mr Melvinderpal Singh and Ms Seto Nu-Wen were journalists with The New Paper back in 2001, when the 9/11 attacks happened in the United States then.

The Straits Times’ Jonathan Roberts speaks with Melvin and Seto, as they recall their trips to Afghanistan with retired photographer Mohd Ishak soon after those attacks.

Afghanistan was sheltering the mastermind behind those terrorist attacks, Osama Bin Laden.

What Melvin and Seto recall of the 9/11 attacks as they unfolded, and the reaction in their newsroom in Singapore (0:45)

Just before the 9/11 attacks, how they and The New Paper had been reporting on emerging terrorist groups in South-east Asia and possible links to Afghanistan (2:30)

How Melvin went to report in Afghanistan a week before the US invasion on Oct 7, 2001 – termed Operation Enduring Freedom (4:58)

First impressions of Afghanistan, and dealing with danger (11:03)

Challenges Seto faced as a female journalist in Afghanistan (17:21)

People whose lives and stories remain etched in Melvin’s and Seto’s memories (20:22)

How the 9/11 attacks affected their own world views (30:55)

The legacy of Pashtun pride and how they view Afghanistan now (34:10)

Produced by: Jonathan Roberts, Shawn Lee Miller & Ernest Luis

Edited by: Jonathan Roberts & Hadyu Rahim

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