I lay in the back of the car and silently recited the Lord’s Prayer. In the distance, I heard men shouting as they collected their dead. If many people had been killed, particularly women and children, we were sure to die. For months, I had promised myself that if they taped our execution I would remain calm for my family and declare our innocence until the end.

After about 15 minutes, the guards returned to the car and led me back to the house. The missiles had struck two cars, killing a total of seven Arab militants and local Taliban fighters. I felt a small measure of relief that no civilians had been killed. But I knew we were still in grave danger.

Two weeks earlier our captors had moved us from Miram Shah, the capital of the North Waziristan tribal agency, to a remote town in South Waziristan. I had seen on a receipt from a local shop that we were in Makeen, a stronghold of the leader of the Pakistani Taliban, Baitullah Mehsud. The region teemed with Uzbek, Arab, Afghan and Pakistani militants.

For the next two hours, I did my best to placate the guards. I did not walk in the yard. I did not speak unless spoken to. I praised God for saving us.

Later, I learned that one guard called for me to be taken to the site of the attack and ritually beheaded as a video camera captured the moment. The chief guard overruled him.

The Taliban assailed the drone attacks, and my captors expressed more hatred for President Obama than for President Bush. They bitterly criticized the Obama administration for increasing the missile attacks in Pakistan’s tribal areas and the number of American troops in Afghanistan.

A stalemate between the United States and the Taliban seemed to unfold before me. The drones killed many senior commanders and hindered their operations. Yet the Taliban were able to garner recruits in their aftermath by exaggerating the number of civilian casualties.