. >> guest: the first thing is we were talking last time about abdul aziz ghazi. after he died he'd been my introduction to all of these and after ghazi died i wrote a piece titled farewell my jihadi friend, which was sort of a single off to this guy who helped at a complex time in my life. the article was published in urdo so even though he had been killed there was still this article i could show to various jihadis and say look, i had a role in his life. >> host: let me just say you knew what was going on because you took the trouble to learn urdo so you were not just a typical journalist relying on a translator, you were in the thick of things and knew what was being said. >> guest: right. it became more complex in the northwest province because i didn't speak pashtun zero. i wanted to visit the taliban and swat that had taken over in the summer of 2007 shortly after the red tosk. they started a series of suicide bombings on the government and set up a sort of islamic state in swat. so to get there and needed a sort of introduction and there was a local journal

there was a red mosque run by this very charismatic set of brothers named abdul aziz and ghazi was the younger and ran the religious side. to get and i needed introduction and thought the introduction, the guy that interest me was the same individual, a close friend of osama bin laden. and the first -- >> host: you're talking to someone who is a close friend of osama bin laden. you're father is aryan corps general officer. your brother was fighting in afghanistan at the time i believe. iraq, and a marine corps uniform. so this is a serious risk taking on your part. >> guest: yet, it raised all sort of moral -- it brought me to a moral and pass more than once, like you said you have to empathize or you will never be allowed in. you have to show a sincere interest. the understanding interest and when someone is trying to come in and get a quote. and i was able to successfully convey i was interested in understanding more about what they were thinking, more about their movement, more about their grievances were over the pakistani state, etc.. so this individual was very close with osama.