The ISIS Hostage

by Puk Damsgård

  James was standing between two sinks and first greeted Federico and David, whom he knew already, after which he presented himself to Daniel, who kept a little in the background.

  ‘Hi, I’m Daniel,’ he replied.

  ‘We’ve heard a lot about you,’ said John, and James smiled broadly. James had a bit of an underbite and a beard on his chin. During his imprisonment, he had converted to Islam and wore a long tunic. Daniel couldn’t take his eyes off James, who was finishing at the sink. A grown man, thought Daniel, who washed himself calmly as if he were standing in his bathroom in the United States.

  ‘See you,’ James said to the group, before a guard led him away.

  When the other hostages returned to their cell, they talked a little about James and John.

  ‘They look much better than they did when we were in the Box,’ David remarked and Federico nodded in agreement. The Box was the nickname for the prison the two of them had previously been in with James and John, near the city of Atme in Idlib province.

  While there, they had been under the control of three British guards. David and Federico were reluctant to talk about what these three men had subjected them to.

  James and John were in a cell at the end of the corridor with a German and, for a few weeks, a fourth fellow prisoner. He wasn’t exactly a hostage in the same way as them. He had privileges. The Belgian fighter Jejoen was under house arrest, part of the time in the same room as the three westerners, but every now and then Abu Athir gave him permission to move freely around the building.

  The others in the cell were also treated well. They were given copied pages from books about Islam and a French guard, Abu Mohammad, gave James permission to take a bath, which was unusual. Abu Mohammad would also sit in the cell occasionally and talk to them. An Iraqi guard, Abu Mariyam, bought cakes for them in the market and Jejoen joked around with James and John.

  Jejoen had a good relationship with the Dutch prison warden, Abu Ubaidah, so sometimes he went into the kitchen and cooked, while also watching Abu Hurraya beating prisoners in the office or blasting them with the stun gun.

  Jejoen noticed the piles of clothes that had piled up under the stairs to the ground floor. He was convinced they belonged to executed prisoners, because he had seen some prisoners being led away one day and the next day he recognized one of their shirts in the bundle.

  His trip to Syria was far from being the adventure he had dreamed of. All he wanted was to go back to Belgium and to his father, who was still looking for him.

  · * ·

  In the second half of August 2013 Arthur’s assistant Majeed met Emir Abu Athir and the prison leader Abu Ubaidah in a building close to the children’s hospital in Aleppo. He had bought a small camera in Turkey, so that he could record a video of Daniel.

  It seemed that Majeed had won over their confidence a bit, because they told him that Daniel had tried to commit suicide by hanging himself from a chain to which he had been shackled to the ceiling. The guards had heard a loud noise from inside the room, hurried in and found Daniel dangling from the ceiling. They had arrived just in time to save him. But Majeed was also lied to.

  ‘Daniel has converted,’ said Abu Ubaidah in his quiet voice. ‘He is now called Abu Aisha.’

  ‘As he is now a Muslim, let us get him home to his family,’ said Majeed, but Abu Athir rejected this.

  ‘His conversion is a lie built on fear,’ said Abu Athir, who was still convinced that Daniel was working for the intelligence services and the army. ‘There are several prisoners here who have converted, because they think it can get them out.’

  ‘He’s very athletic. He does gymnastics in the cell,’ explained Abu Athir.

  Abu Ubaidah was more reserved with information and never spoke badly of Daniel.

  ‘Your friend is very smart,’ said Abu Ubaidah. ‘He always knows what to say.’

  Majeed didn’t know what he was supposed to make of that.

  Majeed’s visit to the children’s hospital took place under high security. They tied a scarf around his face and drove around the streets for about an hour to confuse him, before he was led up and down the stairs. He sensed that he was in a basement when he heard a voice over a walkie-talkie: ‘Is there anyone who can come over to the hospital?’

  They went down a long corridor and turned into a room where the air was heavy and stuffy. Someone made a small opening in the scarf, so Majeed could peer out.

  ‘Can you see him?’ he was asked.

  Majeed saw a thin, fair-haired man with tired eyes in a sunken face.

  ‘Yes,’ said Majeed, and his eyes were covered over again while he was dragged back along the corridor, where he waited for them to record a video of Daniel. He wasn’t allowed to have the camera back, because the guards feared that it had a built-in GPS, so instead he was given a USB memory stick, which contained the video.

  When Arthur heard that Daniel had tried to commit suicide, it put him in a tight spot. He usually shared most of his information with the family, but in this case he hesitated. The information could be an attempt to push the price for Daniel higher. It could also be a lie. But since there were no longer any real negotiations going on for Daniel’s release, Arthur, in consultation with the crisis psychologist, chose to conceal Daniel’s attempted suicide from the family; it was unconfirmed information and wouldn’t benefit them in any way at that point in time. He saw it as part of his job to protect them from any information they didn’t need to know.

  · * ·

  Daniel stood against the wall in the guards’ kitchen, while a guard filmed him. He was told to repeat precisely: ‘My mum’s name is Susanne. My dad’s name is Kjeld. My girlfriend’s name is Signe. It’s the twenty-first of August and the guy who helped me is Majeed.’

  A few days later the guards brought good news to the four Frenchmen. The French government would negotiate for their release, said the guards, but the opposite was true of the Danish government.

  ‘If they won’t negotiate, you’ll be sent home in a body bag,’ was their message to Daniel.

  Pierre and the other Frenchmen were exhilarated and their mood changed, as if they were already on their way home. The hostages believed that real negotiations were taking place; that the kidnappers had contacted the authorities.

  Daniel was frightened and confused. Had the insurance company refused to pay out? Did his parents not realize the policy existed? He lay next to Pierre, took his hand and wept at the thought that the Frenchmen were going home to their families, while he would be left alone in the cell with David, Steven and Federico.

  Outside, the fighting had become more intense and they were getting even less food. Pierre understood the seriousness of the situation and held Daniel’s hand for hours, while they lay staring up at the ceiling.

  ‘If I am released, I will make contact with your parents, the Foreign Ministry and the insurance company,’ promised Pierre.

  Daniel squeezed his hand, but couldn’t fall asleep.

  Some days later, one evening towards the end of August, everyone in the cell was told to stand up against the wall, after which they were handcuffed and blindfolded. The only thing in Daniel’s mind was not to be separated from Pierre and the other Frenchmen. Being French meant hope. Being Danish could be a death sentence.

  Daniel and James

  Early in the morning of 23 August another email arrived in Kjeld’s inbox. He was already on his way to work, but pulled his red truck over to the side of the road to read it. There was a video attachment. He called Susanne and they agreed that they would watch the video, which was probably of Daniel, when they were home from work.

  In the evening the family downloaded the file and Daniel appeared on screen, wearing a camouflage jacket. He stood up against a blue wall and said: ‘My mum’s name is Susanne. My dad’s name is Kjeld. My girlfriend’s name is Signe. It’s the twenty-first of Au
gust and the guy who helped me is Majeed.’

  Daniel was staring into the lens. His round eyes glowed orange in the light from the camera. In the background could be heard the sound of cicadas. When he had to name the man who was helping him, he looked down at a spot under the camera, as if he couldn’t remember the name, and then said ‘Majeed’.

  The video lasted only fifteen seconds, so they played it several times, looking for various signs of torture, starvation and lack of hygiene. Susanne felt relieved to finally hear her son’s voice. He seemed composed on the video, but at the same time the situation was so scary that it felt surreal.

  Christina felt that no one dared to talk about the fears they all shared. In Hedegård they didn’t talk much about their feelings, given the difficulty of articulating what they all feared – the unspeakable situation that was permeating their everyday lives. Would Daniel die? Would he ever come home?

  Daniel still looked thin – and then there were those frightening marks on his neck. He was no longer the Daniel they knew. He was a hostage, who had been told what to say and how to say it. They couldn’t decipher his facial expressions, which were almost non-existent.

  The video was saved on the family computer and Christina sometimes watched it when she was home alone; so did Kjeld and Susanne, but none of them spoke about it.

  The worst part was that the nightmare had only just begun. The negotiations had gone cold and it could take a long time to get Daniel back.

  The video was the latest sign of life and it was also the most recent indirect contact with the kidnappers, but no demand or proposal came with it. No one showed any interest in coming to a definitive agreement, so the video was just a message to reassure the family that Daniel was alive. It had nothing to do with getting him released.

  Arthur had begun to doubt whether Majeed still had access to the hospital and Daniel’s kidnappers. He advised the family to find new ways to establish contact. He helped them formulate a letter to Abu Athir, the Emir of Aleppo, in the hope that the family would be able to build a relationship with him that could bring Daniel home.

  ‘Dear A. A.,’ began the letter. ‘We very much hope that your health has improved and we wish you a continued speedy recovery.’ They were referring to Abu Athir’s leg, which, so they had been informed, had been injured by shrapnel.

  We understand that Daniel violated your regulations while carrying out his work. We are very sorry about that and we offer our deepest apologies for his wrongdoings. We in his family are very unhappy and afraid about his situation. Two of Daniel’s grandparents are still alive; they are both elderly and very sad and worried about what has happened to their grandson. It is very hard for both of them and we are very concerned that they may die of sorrow. Daniel is our only son, the one whose role is to maintain the continuity of the family. He is a good son and a loving brother to his two sisters, who are inconsolable. He is the kind of son who looks after and takes responsibility for the family. We beg you sincerely and with all our hearts to let Daniel come home.

  The letter, which was translated into Arabic and signed by the whole family, ended with yet another apology for Daniel’s actions.

  · * ·

  In northern and eastern Syria a storm was brewing. ISIS had been officially formed five months earlier and the organization’s fighters were advancing rapidly. They were expanding into cities and villages that the other Syrian rebel groups had recently seized from the Assad regime. As the Washington Post reported on 12 August 2013, ISIS was ‘carving out the kind of sanctuaries that the US military spent more than a decade fighting to prevent in Iraq and Afghanistan’.

  At the same time Baghdadi’s ISIS faction had as good as seized power in Raqqa in an internal struggle with Jabhat al-Nusra. ISIS fighters kidnapped civilians and rebels who opposed the strictness of their order, including the local commander, who had led the fight against the government forces in Raqqa in March 2013. Many fighters from Jabhat al-Nusra had switched over to ISIS, which was also growing thanks to foreign fighters from throughout the Middle East and western countries. In the city of Adana, not far from Aleppo, they shot demonstrators and cut the throat of the local leader of the Free Syrian Army, which consisted of more moderate rebels.

  The Syrian rebels were no longer fighting only the Syrian military and the regime’s militias. They were also fighting ISIS and were therefore under pressure from two fronts, a situation which strengthened President Assad. The Syrian regime continued its bombardment of areas controlled by moderate rebel groups, while there was rarely an attack on ISIS in Raqqa.

  ISIS’s struggle was also about winning hearts and minds. But in many areas where ISIS fighters were surging forwards, the locals didn’t care for their brutal methods. Even so, it was difficult to rebel against such an organized force. ISIS didn’t tolerate any criticism and they shot anyone who contradicted them. In a video posted on YouTube in August 2013 it still looked as if they were trying to win the trust of the locals; it showed a religious holiday and ISIS fighters were handing out toys like Teletubbies and stuffed animals. ISIS was also strengthened by the fact that a number of former military officers and Ba’ath Party members from Iraq were leading the group; they had experience in organizing fighters and disciplining populations. ISIS had emerged directly out of the political situation in Iraq left by the American invasion in 2003.

  The organization deliberately used the Internet as an effective tool for spreading its message. ISIS was circulating slick propaganda and recruitment videos, produced with modern camera equipment and skilful graphics and editing techniques.

  In one of the videos, none other than Abu Athir appeared, undisguised, along with the Chechen military leader born in Georgia who used the name Omar al-Shishani. The half-hour long video began with a caption showing the ‘military operations room for the attack’, after which Abu Athir discussed the strategy for a number of operations intended to pave the way southwards towards the towns of Hama and Homs. The shadow of his thick, curly hair moved in the light of a Google map projected on to a white wall, while a soldier zoomed the image in and out as Abu Athir reviewed the military situation around some of the villages. Sitting in a camouflage shirt, he pointed to a yellow pin that was labelled ‘depot’.

  ‘Here is the Air Force base,’ he said, referring to the base held by the regime’s military forces. ‘If we take that, we open up the whole area,’ he continued, pointing to some villages inhabited by loyal citizens from the president’s own Alawite sect and guarded by regime soldiers.

  ‘In each village, there are perhaps only one or two tanks, so, God willing, it won’t be difficult. It will take them at least a day to assemble their troops if they want to send reinforcements. So the first day will be easy. The problem will come on the second day, but we are getting everything ready and giving our brothers mines and whatever else is available.’

  His black hair looked purple in the light of the projector as he went on to talk about their arsenal.

  ‘We have what we need. Don’t say: Why haven’t you given us this or brought us that? Put your trust in God. We haven’t been able to procure more than that and the rest is up to God. As I always say to my brother: If you have just a single cartridge, kill someone with it; don’t let it cause you to lose heart. If God wishes it, one bullet will protect you, I swear. We once resisted a full army, which had tanks and rocket launchers and all kinds of things, with just three Russian cartridges. It isn’t a matter of having anti-tank missiles; it’s a matter of faith and putting your trust in God and nothing else. I swear, three rounds,’ concluded Abu Athir.

  Not only the emir but also a group of young jihadists showed their uncovered faces on the video, which was intended to demonstrate how advanced the organization considered its operations to be. It was probably also the reason why the video was removed from the Internet after a short time.

  ISIS’s growing strength should be seen in the light
of the fact that the Syrians who lived in the newly ISIS-controlled areas had already been traumatized by the war and the state of emergency. They dared not oppose the new rulers, nor were they in a position to rebel against them. For these Syrians it was about surviving the bombs that were being dropped on them and making do with the limited food available.

  ISIS was taking root in a state of chaos, while Syria’s infrastructure was being bombed to pieces. The organization sought to establish its dream – the Islamic Caliphate – on the ruins of Syria.

  · * ·

  It was after dark when the eight hostages were to be moved from the basement under the children’s hospital. Daniel stood handcuffed and blindfolded. His bare feet protruded beyond the size 34 turquoise sandals he had been given.

  They were escorted out to two cars. Daniel heard Pierre’s voice and was relieved that he was in the same car. After about half an hour the car stopped and their handcuffs and blindfolds were removed. They were thrown on to a chilly concrete floor in a dark kitchen and given a sandwich.

  They were not offered any blankets and Daniel was freezing cold during the night. He was annoyed with himself for forgetting to bring the socks he had snatched one day during a toilet visit. There were sometimes discarded clothes out in the toilet, which the prisoners stole and took back to their cells. Despite the cold and the hard floor, he finally fell asleep with his head lying on one of Pierre’s desert boots. The next morning the prisoners were woken up, blindfolded again and herded down a concrete staircase, while tied together in a long line. Daniel was afraid of falling, because those at the front of the human chain were dragging him down. He felt the gravel under his heels, which were sticking out of his sandals, as he carefully put one foot in front of the other, until they were led into a room with two oblong basement windows and a tiled floor.

  At the time the prisoners weren’t aware that they had been brought to the industrial district of Sheikh Najjar, a couple of miles beyond the north-east suburbs of Aleppo. Before the war the area had housed hundreds of factories and businesses, producing things like medicine and cement for the construction industry. But the fighting between rebel factions and the regime had laid waste to the area and forced most of the businesses to shut down. In some areas Sheikh Najjar had become a spectral neighbourhood.