Richard Engel’s Diary of His Kidnapping in Syria: I Thought, “At Least I’ll Die with My Friends” | Vanity Fair

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/2013/04/richard-engel-kidnapping-syria[۲۰۱۳/۱۱/۱٦ ۱۲:٤۹:۱۳ ص]

April 2013

The Hostage

STATES OF TERROR

T

By Richard Engel Photograph by Jonas Fredwall Karlsson

MALALA YOUSAFZAI: THE 15-YEAR-OLD PAKISTANI GIRL WHO WANTED MORE FROM HER COUNTRY

It’s every war correspondent’s nightmare: dragged from the car by men with AK-47s; bound, gagged, and blindfolded; fearing torture or execution at any moment. Last December, a quick trip into Syria turned deadly, NBC News’s Richard Engel recalls, when his team of six was kidnapped by the vicious, pro-government shabiha militia and toyed with by a sadistic captor as they fought against their panic—and for their lives.

FREEDOM Richard Engel, right, and his Turkish colleague Aziz Akyavas crossing the Golden Horn, in Istanbul, a month after they were taken hostage by a pro-Assad Syrian militia.

I. In and Out December 13, 2012

he commander was waiting for us by the side of the road, just as he had promised. His name was Abdelrazaq, and he was clean-shaven and had bright eyes that made him look intelligent. He smoked a cigarette and didn’t let on if he was annoyed that we were an hour late. We’d gotten lost on the way, but didn’t tell him that.

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Richard Engel’s Diary of His Kidnapping in Syria: I Thought, “At Least I’ll Die with My Friends” | Vanity Fair

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/2013/04/richard-engel-kidnapping-syria[۲۰۱۳/۱۱/۱٦ ۱۲:٤۹:۱۳ ص]

I was on assignment for NBC News, and my team and I were on the Syrian side of the Bab al-Hawa border crossing, one of the main access points between Syria and Turkey.

Abdelrazaq lifted our bags into his car. Boys scurried about, looking to carry luggage for tips. Men shouldered 50-pound sacks of fertilizer. The rebels mix fertilizer with sugar and pack it into propane tanks to make bombs that can knock the tracks off a Syrian tank or tear up government patrols. The rebels have used so much fertilizer that it is hard to find in Syria. It has to be carried in from Turkey, along with just about everything else. Guns and money and walkie-talkies and spies go one way across the two miles of no-man’s-land separating Syria from Turkey; the wounded and refugees go the other. The border crossing at Bab al-Hawa is the umbilical cord to the revolution.

Abdelrazaq told us there wasn’t enough room in his car for all our bags and all of us. We were traveling light for television reporters, but we still had computers and batteries and cameras and tapes and flak jackets and medical kits. There were six of us, a pretty big team. I have never liked big teams, but this was going to be an easy trip. We’d be back in Turkey in a few hours.

We hired a minivan for more room. There were always a lot of freelance drivers lingering for business at Bab al-Hawa. Abdelrazaq negotiated a price with a driver named Taher. We divided our gear and the team between Taher’s minivan and Abdelrazaq’s car and set out. Abdelrazaq wanted to show us his prize: four Iranian and two Lebanese fighters his men had captured. He said they were proof that Lebanese groups and the Iranian government were directly supporting President Bashar al-Assad and his death squads. The rebels said Iran trained the most ruthless and lethal of Assad’s militias, the shabiha—the “shadow men.” They are tough guys who do the dirty jobs—the kidnapping and killing and torture. The shabiha ran drugs and women for the regime’s elites before the war. Now they’re President Assad’s secret protectors. Whenever gunmen sweep into rebel-held villages and execute families and burn their houses, the rebels blame the shabiha. I’d seen their videos on the Internet: shabiha henchmen decapitating rebels with chain saws and flaying them alive with telephone wires.

Abdelrazaq was driving his own car. In the passenger seat was a young man of slight build and gentle demeanor whom, for his safety, I’ll call Mustafa. Mustafa was our fixer. His job was to connect Western journalists with rebel commanders inside Syria. Mustafa had studied law at a university in Aleppo; his wife was a doctor. He was an activist, not a rebel. His uncle was an officer who had defected from Assad’s army and risen to become a rebel leader. Mustafa was our link to Abdelrazaq.

I sat behind Mustafa and next to my old friend Aziz Akyavas. Aziz, 57, is grizzled and handsome; he loves women and they love him back. A Turk from Istanbul, Aziz is related by marriage to the last Ottoman sultan. Aziz is one of the most connected men in Turkey—the sort of guy whose cell phone has the numbers of the prime minister and the Cabinet and every taxi stand and liquor store. Aziz has been a journalist for 35 years and has covered conflicts all around the world, including just about every place where the names of warring groups end with the suffix “-ista.” He had wanted to meet Abdelrazaq and was curious to know if the rebels truly had Iranian and Lebanese advisers in custody.

The other members of the group were Ghazi Balkiz, our producer; John Kooistra, the cameraman; Ian Rivers, our technician; and a young man in green rebel fatigues and armed with an AK-47. He was Abdelrazaq’s bodyguard.

We set off down the main road southeast from Bab al-Hawa toward the town of Taftanaz. The Iranian and Lebanese captives were being held somewhere near there.

We passed olive trees on the roadside. It looked like Southern Italy but was cold, so we kept the windows up.

After about 10 minutes, Aziz nudged me with his elbow and pointed to the side of the road.

“Are you seeing this shit?” he asked.

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Richard Engel’s Diary of His Kidnapping in Syria: I Thought, “At Least I’ll Die with My Friends” | Vanity Fair

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/2013/04/richard-engel-kidnapping-syria[۲۰۱۳/۱۱/۱٦ ۱۲:٤۹:۱۳ ص]

NEXT

AII. “Finish Him”

group of about 15 armed men were fanning out around us. Three or four of them stood in the middle of the road blocking our vehicles. The others went for the doors. They wore black jackets, black boots, and black ski masks. They were professionals and used hand signals to communicate. A balled fist meant stop. A pointed finger

meant advance. Each man carried an AK-47. Several of the gunmen began hitting the windows of our car and minivan with the stocks of their weapons. When they got the doors open, they leveled their guns at our chests.

Time was slowing down as if I’d been hit in the head. Time was slowing down as if I were drowning.

This can’t be happening. I know what this is. This can’t be happening. These are the shabiha. They’re fucking kidnapping us.

“Get out!” a gunman was yelling as he dragged Aziz from the car.

Then I saw the container truck. It wasn’t far away, parked off the road and hidden among olive trees. The metal doors at its rear stood open, flanked by gunmen.

That’s where they are going to put us. That’s here for us. We’re going into that truck.

I got out of the car. Two of the gunmen were already marching Aziz to the truck. He had his hands up, his shoulders back, his head tilted forward to protect against blows from behind.

Maybe I should run. Maybe I should run right now. But the road is flat and open. The only cover is by the trees near the truck. Maybe I should run. But where?

I saw John standing by the minivan. Gunmen were taking Ian toward the truck. It was his turn. Like me, John hadn’t been touched yet.

Maybe they’ve forgotten us? Maybe they don’t want us?

Our eyes made contact. John shrugged and opened his hands in disbelief. Time was going very slowly now, but my mind was racing like a panicked heart in a body that can’t move.

“Get going!” a gunman yelled at me in Arabic, pointing his weapon at my chest.

I looked at him blankly, pretending not to understand. Foreigners who speak Arabic in the Middle East are often assumed to be working for the C.I.A. or Israel’s intelligence agency, the Mossad. The gunman took me by the finger, holding on to it by the very tip. I could have pulled it away with the smallest tug.

But then what? Then go where?

John was the next to join us in the back of the truck. He walked slowly, as if being escorted to a waiting limo. John is a New Yorker and was dressed entirely in black. He has long white hair and a devilish smile, and his nickname is the Silver Fox. He and I had been in a lot of rough places—Libya, Iraq, Gaza. John, Ghazi, and Aziz were among my closest friends in the world.

At least I’ll die with my friends.

The rebel commander, Abdelrazaq, was confused. He thought this was a misunderstanding. He thought that this was a group of rebels who’d gone rogue and were acting like commandos.

“What are you doing?” he yelled to the gunmen as they loaded him into the truck. “We are Free Syrian Army! We are Free Syrian Army! I am a commander with the Free Syrian Army.”

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Richard Engel’s Diary of His Kidnapping in Syria: I Thought, “At Least I’ll Die with My Friends” | Vanity Fair

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/2013/04/richard-engel-kidnapping-syria[۲۰۱۳/۱۱/۱٦ ۱۲:٤۹:۱۳ ص]

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I always get the impression that he was so excited to be the story this time.

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Riveting account. Follow Syria closely, news to me that Iran trains Shabiha, had presumed they were merely mercenaries with a license to kill from ASSad. It is clear that if Richard Engel and other reputable journalists had been able to freely enter Syria, ASSad would not have lasted as long as he has.

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"When you're drowning in images of torture and execution and your mind races, you can take control of your thoughts by focusing on something that's time-consuming and requires concentration. You can build a house, room by room, picking out the tiles and flooring and windows. You can invent crossword puzzles." Or you can count the money your dad stole while he was at Goldman Sachs which put you through Stanford.

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Richard Engel’s Diary of His Kidnapping in Syria: I Thought, “At Least I’ll Die with My Friends” | Vanity Fair

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/2013/04/richard-engel-kidnapping-syria[۲۰۱۳/۱۱/۱٦ ۱۲:٤۹:۱۳ ص]

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