by Puk Damsgård
‘You can also go to Syria now. We can just enter,’ said Mahmoud.
‘No, thanks – I’m only here to get a feel for the atmosphere,’ said Daniel.
He spoke with Syrian refugees to get an idea of the situation in their homeland. He sought out journalists and NGO workers who described how the war had been moving in new directions. And when he returned to Denmark, he called a man named Arthur, who would later turn out to have a great impact on his life.
· * ·
The boats were sloshing around in the water along the quayside in Copenhagen’s Nordhavn neighbourhood. Daniel was walking beside a tall, pipe-smoking man and his black dog, which ran around them, off the leash, sniffing here and there. Daniel had called Arthur because he had heard that he was a walking encyclopedia of practical and safety-related advice for journalists travelling in Syria. Arthur had immediately invited him out for coffee.
It was 24 April 2013 and Arthur happened to be home in Denmark on a stopover between his many trips to Turkey and Lebanon. As the owner of a consulting firm specializing in security, he had many years of practical experience as a negotiator and investigator in kidnapping cases around the world – from Nigeria and Somalia to Syria, Poland and Egypt. When he met Daniel, he was working on a remarkable kidnapping case in Syria, which he couldn’t talk about openly.
Daniel later learned that in late November 2012 Arthur had received a call from an acquaintance in the United States who was working as a hostage negotiator. He told him that the American freelance journalist James Foley had disappeared in Syria on 22 November. Arthur was assigned to the case and immediately flew to Turkey, where James’s friends and acquaintances had already started searching for him. Arthur’s first task was to separate rumour from fact, which turned out not to be so straightforward. No one had any real information about who had taken James. Although Arthur knew from James’s driver and fixer exactly where and how James had been kidnapped, no one recognized the perpetrators. It was like trying to find a needle in a haystack of contradictory information that Arthur had collected from his network of local informants. Some reported that Foley had been seen in Aleppo; others that he was in Saraqeb.
Reports also came in that someone had seen his body. After long deliberations, James’s family and one of the newspapers he worked for, the Global Post, launched a public campaign in January 2013, entitled ‘Free James Foley’, but it was a double-edged sword.
On the one hand, the campaign focused on James’s personality and therefore spoke to the kidnappers’ compassion. It also helped to spread the news that someone was looking for him. On the other hand, no one knew who had taken James, and Arthur feared that a sustained media campaign could backfire, because it would focus attention on a case that the kidnappers might think should have been ‘run under the radar’.
‘We risk damaging the negotiating environment,’ Arthur pointed out to the family and the Global Post. In fact, the campaign only led to more misleading information. However, in the spring of 2013 the hunt for James turned south towards the Syrian capital of Damascus. The investigation changed course, spurred on by at least two other kidnapping cases in which the hostage had ended up in the hands of Assad’s informal militias, the Shabiha. James had been taken within a radius of about six miles from a place where it was known the Shabiha were operating, so, in the FBI’s opinion, Arthur had to consider that scenario as a possibility.
It was a matter of determining who had the means and the motivation to hold someone secretly captive for months on end without making any demands. The Assad regime seemed like an obvious choice, but the question was whether the insurgency also had the capability to make people disappear.
It was with the James Foley affair and the critical situation in Syria in mind that Arthur was now walking along the waterfront, giving the young photographer advice.
‘It isn’t the best place in the world to go right now,’ said Arthur, as they strolled along the harbour and looked out over the water.
Daniel looked up at the tall man, who, seriously but also with a twinkle in his eye, gave him his four-hour ‘stump speech’ of the most important things to remember if he went to Syria. As a starting point, Arthur advised against making the trip, because the risk of kidnapping had grown since the end of 2012. The mood towards journalists had changed, especially among some of the Islamist rebel groups. Arthur told Daniel that he should beware of Islamists from Jabhat al-Nusra. They were operating in northern Syria and were behind the kidnappings of several journalists.
‘Most cases, however, were resolved fairly easily in a few days or months,’ said Arthur, who mentioned the kidnapping of James as the most dramatic and still unresolved.
Daniel listened intently and wrote down all the information Arthur gave him.
‘I have all the prerequisites for being an idiot,’ said Daniel, who had never been to the Middle East. ‘My greatest fear is that I’ll end up on the front page of the tabloids as the idiot who hadn’t thought about the risks involved.’
Arthur went through a series of basic safety precautions. First, Daniel had to make sure not to be seen by too many people or walk around with people he didn’t know.
‘It’s a jungle where you don’t know who you can trust,’ he continued.
In addition, Daniel should take out insurance, give his family written information about his trip and constantly send messages home about where he was. Arthur thought to himself that it was the last two measures that James hadn’t taken into account, which had made it difficult to locate him.
If Daniel were kidnapped, the golden piece of advice was: never tell a lie, create a routine for yourself and play the game. Arthur recommended that Daniel take only a brief trip to Syria and not to stay too long in one place.
‘Stay close to the border, so you can cross back again before it closes around five p.m. Don’t stay there overnight,’ said Arthur finally.
When they parted, Daniel felt well equipped, even though he was taking a risk by travelling into a war zone, especially for the first time.
He compared going on this trip with learning a new gymnastics routine. The chances of landing on his head and breaking his neck was highest the first few times, when he was still a beginner. He vowed to himself that he would follow Arthur’s advice. He would take care not to travel too far into Syria and make it just a short trip to get a feel for the atmosphere.
But in Syria all the rules, statistics and know-how dissolved and there was one unknown that no one could avoid: no matter how experienced and prepared a journalist is, they can end up in the wrong place at the wrong time. Syria was no longer the place to take a risk or try one’s luck. The kidnapping of James Foley was proof of that.
· * ·
Daniel bought a ticket to Turkey, departing on 14 May 2013. He spent the weekend before at home with his parents, where he packed a bulletproof vest and a first-aid kit borrowed from Arthur.
Susanne and Kjeld were well aware that there was a war in Syria, but they had given up trying to follow what was happening. Susanne was focused on her new job as an assistant in a clothing shop at the Legoland amusement park and Kjeld transported grain around Denmark.
Susanne was in the kitchen while Daniel was packing. ‘What are you going to do down there?’ she asked.
‘So many people are being killed or fleeing,’ said Daniel. ‘I want to photograph the people who are staying and trying to create a daily life in the midst of war.’
They talked through his trip in detail. Daniel would be travelling to the border town of Azaz, a few miles inside Syria. He would stay there for a couple of days so he could get out quickly if the war came closer.
The situation in Azaz at the time was more peaceful than elsewhere. Rebels from the Free Syrian Army had taken control of the town and the border post after heavy fighting with regime forces in August 2012. This had opened up new paths into Syria for jihadist
s and journalists. Since then, the rebellion had changed and had become more Islamist; new factions and power struggles had arisen. The Assad regime did bomb Azaz now and then, but Daniel wouldn’t be going directly to the front line.
‘It’s the equivalent of going to Tønder, while the war is being waged in Copenhagen,’ explained Daniel soothingly, referring to a town 200 miles from the capital.
Susanne decided that, for once, she wasn’t going to worry. In addition, Daniel had left a document for her in which all the information about his trip was described in detail. It lay on the kitchen table, written a little messily with a blue ballpoint:
Fly to Gaziantep on Tuesday the 14th, 14:20. Spend the night at a hotel in Kilis. On Wednesday morning I cross the Syrian border at the Kilis border post. Being picked up by Mahmoud (Skype name), the fixer. We drive to Azaz and stay there for three days. On the 18th I’ll be driven back to the border, take a taxi to the airport and fly home to Denmark at 22:50.
The time of the flight from Turkey was crossed out and changed to 19.55.
Arthur’s telephone number was also on the note; they should call him if Daniel didn’t get in touch.
Susanne drove Daniel to Give Station. She had to be at work at Legoland at 11.30 and was wearing her work clothes – red shirt and blue trousers, Lego’s cheerful colours. She waved goodbye from the driver’s seat and didn’t get out of the car to give him her standard warnings and advice like she usually did. Normally, she would stand there at the station sobbing and Daniel would laugh. It was also the first time she didn’t give him a farewell hug.
‘See you in a week’s time,’ said Daniel and jumped on the train to Copenhagen to visit his girlfriend.
He told Signe about the list of numbers his parents had and said that Kjeld was his main contact. He would try to give her updates while he was out there. She told him to take care of himself.
‘I don’t think I can cope with finding a new boyfriend,’ she laughed.
On the morning of Tuesday, 14 May they kissed goodbye and Daniel drove to the college room he had sublet when it had become too complicated to keep sleeping on different friends’ sofas. He vacuumed, so that the person he had sublet from could come home to a clean room.
Then he drove to Copenhagen Airport.
Syria Round Trip
On a curb near the central roundabout in Raqqa three men sat in a row, blindfolded. An ISIS-fighter was looking at them, while speaking into a megaphone from a white police pickup. An armed man stood on the bed of the truck. Masked fighters were walking around the square with black ISIS flags, while civilians gathered in front of a kiosk with Coca-Cola signs to see what was going on. Some people were filming with their mobiles.
Attention was being paid to the three men in the middle, who, according to the speaker, belonged to the Alawite sect, like President Assad. When he finished speaking, the three men were shot in the back of the neck with a pistol, dying instantly. Several shots were fired, making the lifeless bodies on the asphalt jump with each bullet, until the fighters turned their weapons towards the sky and shot at random, shouting ‘Allahu akbar! God is the greatest!’
The footage from the eyewitnesses’ mobile phones was posted online on Wednesday, 15 May 2013 and demonstrated for the first time the methods used by ISIS in Raqqa, where they now had so much power that they could shoot people without trial in the middle of an open square.
That same day, Daniel tried to enter Syria.
When he landed in Gaziantep on the previous evening, he drove towards the border town of Kilis as planned and found a hotel to stay in overnight. The next morning he took a taxi to the border where he had arranged to meet his fixer, Mahmoud.
But the plans for the trip were beginning to fall apart. Mahmoud didn’t answer his phone. Daniel tried to find him at the border crossing among a mass of refugees who were wandering around with blankets, pots and children in their arms. The staff at the Syrian Media Centre at the border post refused to let him go on, unless he could produce a letter confirming he was a photographer.
When he couldn’t find his fixer, Daniel drove back to Kilis and had to wait until late in the day before Mahmoud rang him.
‘I can’t go to Syria with you as agreed, but call my friend Ahmed. He’ll come with a colleague, so you can talk it all through,’ was his rather vague message.
In the meantime, Daniel got the necessary letter from a French photo agency and edited a travel video in his hotel room. The film began above the clouds during the flight to Turkey. He called his video diary ‘Syria Round Trip’ and he sent it home to Signe.
‘My name is Daniel Rye,’ he told the camera. ‘I’m twenty-four years old and right now I’m on a layover in Istanbul eating chips. I’m on my way with my camera to Syria to document the lives of the people who live surrounded by war.’
He had also filmed the drive towards the border. Wearing sunglasses, he said, ‘Now I’m standing at the border crossing between Turkey and Syria, near Kilis. I was very nervous about whether it was at all possible, but now all the pieces have fallen into place. Let’s go.’
But the pieces hadn’t quite fallen into place and he filmed the last scene while lying in bed.
‘Yes, well … now I’m lying here in a hotel room in Kilis. Now we have to see if I can succeed tomorrow. Otherwise, it’s a load of crap. It’s just a load of craaap.’
The round table at the outdoor café wobbled on the uneven asphalt of the terrace. Daniel ordered a cup of thick Turkish coffee and lit a cigarette, while restlessly looking through his sunglasses at the cars that drove past in the narrow street, swirling up the dust. It was Thursday morning, 16 May, and the new fixer, Ahmed, arrived at the café on time, along with a woman named Aya. They presented themselves to Daniel and sat down in the rickety metal chairs.
Ahmed had long, greasy, black hair, spoke energetically about how possible the whole trip was and invited Daniel to his wedding in a few months.
‘I can arrange the trip. I’ve done it many times before, and I’m good at it,’ announced Ahmed, in a way that Daniel thought was a little too cocky.
He preferred Aya, who looked like she was around his own age. She spent most of the time listening with a serious expression on her face. Her eyes were heavily made up with pencilled eyebrows, and a white scarf covered her hair. She was wearing tight, black trousers that followed the soft curves of her hips and a long black cardigan, which hung over them. Her bare feet were tucked into a pair of flat and rather impractical sandals by comparison with Daniel’s leather boots. She said she was a nurse and had lived in Aleppo, but she had fled from the war after she had narrowly escaped being put in a regime prison.
Daniel thought to himself that, as a nurse, she must be good at first aid, and that women were by nature probably a little more careful than men.
‘I can take you to Aleppo,’ she suggested to Daniel and told him that she had been part of the revolution against Assad from the beginning and had gone to Aleppo with journalists several times.
‘No, I’m not interested in the war as such,’ said Daniel. ‘I’d really like to meet the people who are surviving. My plan is to go to Azaz.’ Aya spoke good English and that made him feel secure.
‘We can easily meet people in Azaz who are trying to survive,’ she said. They agreed that Aya would take Daniel from Turkey to the Syrian border town.
He went back to his hotel, charged the batteries for his camera and checked out of his room, after which they drove towards the border.
Just before they reached the border crossing, Aya asked him to get out of the car. She wanted to drive on alone and cross the border illegally somewhere nearby, while he was standing in the interminable queue of Syrians.
When the Turks had put an exit stamp on his passport, he walked the half-mile or so along the asphalt between the Turkish and Syrian border posts. He had his square, leather bag on his back with a
ll the essentials: sleeping bag, first-aid kit, camera and computer. The bullet-proof vest and helmet were in a separate bag.
At the Syrian border post, rebels dressed in camouflage and multi-pocket vests and carrying loaded Kalashnikovs walked around among the refugees living in a makeshift camp nearby. The border-control post amounted to a small shed, where Daniel showed his photographer documentation and was given permission to enter Syria. Aya was waiting for him near the shed, as agreed, but she wasn’t alone. Beside her stood a balding, elderly man dressed in a grey shirt and trousers.
‘Who’s he?’ asked Daniel.
‘He’s from the Free Syrian Army and he’s going to drive us to Azaz,’ said Aya.
They got into the old man’s car. Daniel was sitting in the front passenger seat, next to an assault rifle, which he noticed had the stock downwards and the barrel pointing at Aya sitting in the back.
‘Can’t he point the gun somewhere else?’ asked Daniel uneasily, but Aya didn’t translate what he said and the barrel remained pointing straight at her.
Arabic music flowed out of the car speakers as they drove past goatherds and through small villages. Daniel took a picture of the white-and-brown goats crossing the road in front of them. Then he looked up at the sky. The sun was still shining, but dark-blue thunder clouds were on the horizon across the golden fields dotted with whitewashed houses.
They must have made a detour on the way to Azaz, because they suddenly drove into a farm, where they were served a metal bowl filled with food, which they ate while sat on the floor in the living room.
‘It’s great to get something to eat, but that wasn’t our agreement,’ Daniel said to Aya while they ate. ‘I’d like to go straight from point A to point B.’
He was remembering Arthur’s advice to avoid being seen by too many people and not to drive around the area at random.
‘Yes, I know, but the driver insisted that we had to have something to eat,’ she replied patiently and referred to Syrian hospitality, which was often at odds with security advice.