Canadian journalist Scott Taylor was kidnapped by terrorists in Iraq but eventually released. He filed an eye-opening report in the Halifax Herald. Read part one and then part two.
Taylor seemed to know what story he wanted from the beginning:
It was my intention to enter the city before it was shut down, then send reports about the civilian casualties and possible humanitarian crisis that would result from a major battle.
Things went wrong immediately, thanks to officials he thought could be trusted.
The sight of American-paid Iraqi police forces monitoring traffic seemed a good sign that things were still under control, despite the recent fighting. As I did not have an exact address for my previous contact, I approached a police checkpoint to ask for assistance. When I asked them to be taken to "Dr. Yashar," they recognized his name as a prominent local Turkmen official and eagerly nodded. A senior policeman was summoned and he instructed me and Zeynep Tugrul - a Turkish journalist who was serving as my translator and filing her own reports for Sabah, a daily national newspaper - to climb into a nearby car containing four masked gunmen. As we clambered into the back seat, one of the gunmen said in excellent English, "We will take you to Dr. Yashar - please do not be afraid."I assumed these men were some sort of special police force - our own Canadian counterterrorist teams often wear ski masks - so I had no immediate cause for concern.
But as soon as we entered Tal Afar, I saw that the streets were full of similarly masked resistance fighters armed with Kalashnikov rifles and RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades). I suddenly realized we were in the hands of the resistance.
After being handed around to multiple "resistance" groups over a period of days and surviving several U.S.-led air assaults on nearby locations, he and his translator were tortured.
After my feet were cut loose, I was pulled upright and the interrogator handed me a pen and paper."You will write down all the websites you think might help to confirm that you are in fact a Canadian journalist," he said. I made some remark that I would have gladly done so without the beating, but my attempt at black humour was wasted.
I had been badly beaten, and as I walked out of the anteroom back into the main parlour, most of the Arab "pupils" had gathered to see my reaction. I tried my best not to let them see any weakness by pressing the pen hard against the paper so that they could not see my hands shaking. Taking the list of websites from me, the interrogator told me, "If this checks out, you'll live. If you lied, you die."
A few minutes later, I was ushered into an adjacent room, told to lie face down on the floor and a gun barrel was placed against the back of my neck. It was Zeynep's turn to be beaten, and as she cried out, the guard behind me repeated: "You can spare her the pain. Simply confess that you are a spy."
As I kept uttering denials, he spat on my head and said, "Only a dog would let a woman suffer like that!"
I thought to myself, "And what kind of animal would torture a woman?"
Well, that would be a terrorist, not just a "resistance fighter" or "insurgent." Many scary, interesting details in these articles.
Posted by Alan at September 21, 2004 05:33 PM