“We’ve been married nine months,” she added. “And seven of those, David has been in captivity.”

Both Mr. Keller and Mr. Rohde’s family declined to discuss details of the efforts to free the captives, except to say that no ransom money was paid and no Taliban or other prisoners were released.

“Kidnapping, tragically, is a flourishing industry in much of the world,” Mr. Keller said. “As other victims have told us, discussing your strategy just offers guidance for future kidnappers.”

Mr. Rohde, 41, had traveled to Afghanistan in early November to work on a book about the history of American involvement there when he was invited to interview a Taliban commander in Logar Province outside Kabul. Mr. Rohde, who years before had been taken prisoner while reporting in Bosnia, had instructed The Times’s bureau in Kabul about whom to notify if he did not return. He also indicated that he believed that the interview was important and that he would be all right.

Image David Rohde, a reporter captured last fall by the Taliban, interviewed residents of southern Afghanistan in 2007. Credit... Tomas Munita for The New York Times

His father, Harvey Rohde, said that while he regretted that his son had made the trip, he understood his motivation, “to get both sides of the story, to have his book honestly portray not just the one side but the other side as well.”

“I guess that personifies my son,” Mr. Rohde said.

As security has deteriorated in Afghanistan, kidnappers have increasingly singled out affluent Afghans as well as foreign contractors, aid workers, church members and journalists. Last fall, Melissa Fung, a reporter for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, was held captive in a dank underground hole for nearly a month until Afghan authorities pressured her kidnappers to release her. Mr. Rohde’s captivity was one of the longest in the country.

Mr. Rohde joined The Times 12 years ago after winning a Pulitzer Prize in international reporting in 1996 for documenting the massacre of Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica.