Tangled Tale of American Found in Afghanistan

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“He said to them, ‘I am very much interested in learning about Islam and I want to live side by side with Muslims,’ ” said a Taliban commander from Zheri, who goes by the name Mullah Basir.

“This black American was telling the Taliban, ‘We were told untrue information about the Taliban and the Muslims and now that I have come to you, I see that the reality is different,’ ” said Mullah Basir, adding that the Taliban appeared to believe him.

They also believed he had military knowledge that could help them — although whether he actually did is unclear. The information the villagers and the Taliban commander said he gave did not seem particularly insightful.

“He was giving the Taliban a lot of information on a military level,” Mullah Basir said. “For example, where you have to shoot the American.”

“Like they wear bullet-proof vests,” he said, “so you have to shoot a part that is exposed, that your bullet can penetrate and the other thing was how to shoot on a helicopter, you should shoot on the front, not the back, and he was helpful in explaining maps and directions.”

A landowner named Mohammed from the Sang-i-Sar area of Zheri described seeing him in the villages dressed in Afghan garb.

“I saw him on a motorbike with other Taliban, wearing a turban and shaalwar kameez,” said Mohammed, referring to the Afghan tunic. “Other villagers told me he was American.” He said Mr. that Owuo-Hagood had an American gun that fired “big bullets with flames,” and that “the villagers were saying he was teaching the Taliban how to fire rockets into the American base.”

Mr. Owuo-Hagood’s father said that sometime in August, he received an e-mail supposedly from his son, but written by someone whose first language was clearly not English, saying he was “under control of the Taliban.”

The Hagoods wrote back that he was “a family man and that he had wife and daughter,” said the father. “We told them it was Ramadan to please be forgiving and emancipate him.”

A few days later, a brief message arrived, this one apparently written by Mr. Owuo-Hagood. It said that he was “learning the language” and memorizing chapters of the Koran. He said that the Taliban suspected him of being an American soldier and planned to detain him until they could verify that he was not, his father said.

Then, a few weeks ago, Mr. Owuo-Hagood phoned to say he would be released soon, and asked his father to explain his absence to Delta.