"The market saw gold going lower, and everyone panicked, " said Pradeep Unni, head of research at Richcomm Global Services, a Dubai-based commodity broker.

WSJ: Gold Plummets to Two-Year Low

Khalil, seemingly panicked, ordered everyone to run. (He later told me that he had seen movement below and feared that the Taliban were about to surround us.) We headed for another hill, from which I was finally able to see the convoy, about a half mile away, across a wadi.

NEWYORKER: The Taliban��s Opium War