CFCC student visits Afghanistan, interviews Taliban

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — A Wilmington man recently visited Afghanistan. He’s among the first Americans to visit to the war-torn country since US withdrew its forces in 2021. 

20-year-old Luke Basso has a YouTube channel where he interviews veterans and survivors of war—spanning from World War II to Iraq and Afghanistan.  

A student at Cape Fear Community College, Basso has met and interviewed hundreds of people since he started his passion project at age 15.  

Last month, Basso took on his most ambitious interview yet—speaking with Taliban fighters about the Soviet-Afghan war.  

Basso says another youtuber named Lord Miles offered him the chance to visit Afghanistan together.  

“First I’m like, okay I don’t know if I want to do that, but in the back of my head, I thought, ‘that would be kind of cool if I could do that,’ but that’s never going to happen,” he recalled. 

After more than a year of planning, Basso entered Afghanistan through the United Arab Emirates.  

While there, he interviewed a former associate of Osama Bin Laden, as well as the son of the head of the Mujahideen—a precursor group to the Taliban who fought against the Soviet Union in the 1980s. 

Basso says his goal is to document both sides of history.  

“Part of me as a career wants to be a correspondent, and I’d rather find out now than later,” he said. “Doing a job like that requires you to go to dangerous countries and interview people of controversy.”  

Although Basso was the only American in sight, remnants of the US’ military involvement lingers years later.  

“Most of the equipment they’re using is American,” Basso said. “I saw American Humvees, I saw captured American planes on the runway still, just left there. They don’t know how to operate them.”   

Basso has still yet to translate the entirety of his interviews—but what he was able to understand revealed a surprising truth about the actors of conflict.  

“I feel like with anyone there I can talk about history, or the war, current events, or politics with them because that’s all they know. They’ve been at war for decades. It’s only been a few years that they’ve had peace,” Basso said. 

Basso isn’t stopping at Afghanistan. He says he’s already begun planning a trip to Ukraine to interview veterans there.