Episode 8: Souad Mekhennet

The Sunday Long Read Podcast

Souad Mekhennet is a national security correspondent for The Washington Post and the author of the national best-selling, "I Was Told To Come Alone: My Journey Behind the Lines of Jihad." Last month, she was named the 2017 recipient of the Daniel Pearl Award. In this conversation with her friend and former colleague, Don Van Natta Jr., Mekhennet describes her 16 years covering Jihad for the Post, The New York Times and other publications; the techniques she uses to gain the trust of sources, including terrorist leaders, and how she manages their expectations; where her immense bravery and courage likely come from. She also discusses several of her most renowned pieces, including one for The New York Times that she and Don collaborated on in 2005 about a German man's imprisonment and torture in an Afghanistan prison by officials believed to be with the CIA, as well as her most recent story, The Jihadist Plan To Use Women To Launch the Next Incarnation of ISIS. Their conversation lasts 59 minutes.