Australian journalist Yalda Hakim was called directly by the Taliban while live on-air for the BBC

This is the moment an Australian journalist got a call from the Taliban on her mobile phone while live on-air with the BBC.

A BBC journalist who grew up in Australia has been left startled and stunned after receiving a call directly to her mobile phone from the Taliban while live on air.

Yalda Hakim, who was born in Afghanistan but moved to Sydney’s west in 1986, was delivering an interview when the unexpected phone call arrived.

Looking flustered, she looked down as the call came in but smoothly put the Taliban spokesman on-air as she grilled him with questions.

“OK, we have got the Taliban’s spokesman Shail Shaheen on the line. Mr. Shaheen, can you hear me?” the Australian journalist said.

After confirming that he could hear her, Shaheen launched into a speech in which he promised “peace” in the war-ravaged country.

“There should not be any confusion, we are sure the people of Afghanistan in the city of Kabul, that their properties and their lives are safe. There will be no revenge on anyone. We are the servants of the people and of this country,” he said.

Taliban spokesman Mohammad Suhail Shaheen called Yalda Kahim while she was on air. Picture: Getty

“Our leadership has instructed our forces to remain at the gate of Kabul, not to enter the city. “We are awaiting a peaceful transfer of power,” added Shaheen, who did not rule out that public executions and amputation punishments could be used.

“I can’t say right now, that’s up to the judges in the courts and the laws. The judges will be appointed according to the law of the future government,” said the spokesman, who also confirmed that the country will return to the extreme version of Islamic sharia law.

“Of course, we want Islamic government,” Shaheen said during the half-hour interview.

The call came after the Taliban declared victory in Kabul over the weekend, 20 years after being removed from power by US-led forces.

Yalda Hakim has reported from around the world including Afghanistan.

Ms Hakim was only six months old when her family fled to Pakistan during the Afghan-Soviet War.

Her father, who was an architect, avoided conscription and fled by putting Hakim and her mother on one horse, her older brother and sister on another and led them out of the country on foot.

They walked for 10 days before arriving in Pakistan, where they stayed for two years before being sponsored by an Australian couple to move to NSW.

She attended Macarthur Girls High School in Parramatta before studying journalism at Sydney’s Macleay College. She then went on to work for the SBS before moving to London and taking up a role with the BBC in 2012.

Ms Hakim is well known in Afghanistan, which she visited for the first time in 2008. Her interview with then-Afghanistan president Hamid Karzai in 2013, has received the United Nations Media Peace Prize and now fronts the flagship BBC program Impact.

Originally published as Australian journalist Yalda Hakim was called directly by the Taliban while live on-air for the BBC