Echoes, uncertainty as Afghan pilots await US help in Tajikistan

With limited contact with families and their phones taken away, Afghan pilots await US help, uncertain about the future.

A US-trained Afghan pilot was talking to Reuters on a smuggled cellphone from Tajikistan, where he is being held, when something strange happened — his voice started looping, repeating everything he had just said, word for word.

His fiancee, an American nurse in Florida, was on the line too and started to panic. She shouted his name, but his words kept cycling back.