The Dawn Prayer[Or How to Survive in a Secret Syrian Terrorist Prison]

by Matthew Schrier

  As I came out of the stairway I looked around to make sure all was clear and then took off heading southeast. Now all I had to do was get out of Aleppo—with no money, no passport, no cell phone, no contacts, and speaking virtually no Arabic—without getting killed, kidnapped, or turned back over to Jabhat al-Nusra. I was about to become arguably the most hunted man in one of the most dangerous cities in the world and the clock was ticking.

  Fourteen hours, I said to myself. You have fourteen hours to get help before they realize you’re gone.

  The first person I approached was a middle-aged man with a mustache, sleeping behind the wheel of a small truck.

  “Help me, please, help me!” I said in Arabic. “I was kidnapped by criminals!”

  He looked right at me and made a “Tt” sound—meaning “No.” Seeing as he wasn’t inclined to help, I wasted no time in putting as much distance between me and that point as possible, in case he told someone he’d seen me and where. Zigzag, zigzag, zigzag I continued down the alley-like streets, sticking to ones that were impassable due to old roadblocks to make it harder to follow me in a vehicle.

  The next people I tried were two kids in their early teens on a cart being pulled by a donkey. As I ran up to them they got scared and whipped the reins, sending the donkey into a gallop.

  “Shit!” I said.

  Now I had to put some distance between myself and that point. I decided to hook a right, and when I did I found myself looking straight at the back of a jihadi who had his AK-47 slung over his shoulder. I very quietly turned around and headed back in the direction I had come.

  Before I knew it I was on a busy street in broad daylight, a few cars and trucks whizzing by. I saw an old man with a white scarf around his head coming my way, and my gut told me that this was the man who was going to save my life. I was a little surprised by his response to my halting Arabic.

  “No!” he barked, in English.

  “Great!” I muttered, and rushed back into the side streets.

  Men sat outside in front of barbershops, and when I passed I nodded to them and met their stares. I knew they could tell I was a foreigner and I also knew they could tell I had just gone through some shit, but none looked friendly enough to trust, so I kept moving, never opening my mouth to let my accent escape me.

  After about forty minutes of walking through the bombed-out city, past buildings leveled by artillery and the air force, I came upon three men just kicking it on a corner and decided to engage them. Since my pleas for help hadn’t gotten me anywhere so far, I figured I needed to change my game, and instead of acting desperate I went with confused.

  “Assallam alekum,” I said. “Where’s the Free Syrian Army?”

  As I asked this I tapped the side of my head and shook it, to make them think I’d gotten lost on my way back from somewhere.

  “I am a photographer. I am a Canadian. I am a Muslim,” I said in Arabic.

  None of the men spoke English, but the youngest one, who was sitting on the curb, pointed behind me in the direction I’d come from.

  “You know, I just can’t find it,” I said, shaking my head. “Would you?”

  The man jumped to his feet and motioned for me to follow him. We walked for a couple of minutes until we came upon a tall, bright-green metal door. The man knocked. When nobody answered he knocked again, and after a few seconds I heard the door being unlocked from the inside. When it opened, standing before me was a young jihadi of about twenty-five, wearing a black-and-blue-striped polo with a neatly groomed beard and mustache. I figured now was the time for my desperation act so I fell to my knees and begged him to help me with the most fervent Arabic I knew. When the jihadi pulled me to my feet I saw only one thing on his face: skepticism.

  The man who’d led me to the door disappeared as soon as it opened. The jihadi who’d answered it let me in and searched me as we stood in the entryway, emptying my pockets and removing the shirt from my head. I could feel him contemplating me, trying to decide whether or not I was a CIA agent. By now I had told him that I was a Muslim and a Canadian photographer who’d been kidnapped by criminals. The first things he’d produced from my pockets were the pills I’d brought in case I was recaptured. Since they were loose and wrapped in plastic I admit they looked kind of shady, and he stared at me, waiting for an explanation.

  “Diarrhea,” I said.

  He didn’t speak a word of English, so I squatted and made a few short farting sounds. That cleared everything right up, and I got my first smile out of him. The next thing he produced, however, was a possible problem. It was Abdullah the dentist’s phone number. The last thing I wanted was for these guys to call him and find out that I had escaped not from common criminals, but from Jabhat al-Nusra, so when the jihadi found the small strip of paper with the number on it I pretended I’d never seen it before.

  “I don’t know what that is,” I said, shrugging. “I just got these jeans and that must have been in there.”

  By now all this activity by the entrance had drawn the attention of another jihadi, this one older and clearly just awakened from sleep. After a brief exchange the young man who’d answered the door returned the contents of my pockets and led me back outside. He motioned for me to sit on the curb and joined me a second later. Now everyone was awake, and the older man had come outside to stand above me, along with two more jihadis who looked to be barely out of their teens and one who looked a couple of years younger. I figured it was time for the test to see who they really were.

  “You have a cigarette?” I asked, putting my fingers to my mouth.

  None of the men were smoking, but as soon as I asked, the baby of the group ran inside, returning a second later holding a pack of cigarettes. He then handed me the luckiest Lucky I would ever smoke, along with a lighter. This meant that I was with the FSA and not fanatics—which also meant my odds of getting to the Turkish border had just improved tenfold.

  Now I had to make a decision. Go for the border and try to help Theo from there, or try to get to the town of Hraytan, where my contacts—including an FSA commander with three hundred battle-hardened men under him—were still fighting. This commander, Sheikh Modar, was a very highly respected and religious man, the type with clout; the type that may have been able to help no matter how much of a long shot it was. It was a no-brainer. I had to get to Hraytan. A promise is a promise.

  “Hraytan, Sheikh Modar, Ameriki journalist,” I said holding up my hands with my wrists together to show them that another man was still in captivity.

  They asked me who had him and where, but I pretended not to know. They still hadn’t even invited me inside, which worried me a little. But after about half an hour of chain-smoking the kid’s Luckies and talking, the jihadi who’d answered the door reached out, put his hand on my shoulder, and gave me a single nod that said: Don’t worry, you’re with friends now.

  They led me inside. As we entered the building, which had been a rug factory before the war, I looked to my left and saw a large room with mattresses all over the floor and a table off to the side that had to be fifteen feet long, with AK-47s leaning against the wall on top of it. We turned to the right instead, into an empty room that led to an office where there was a desk with several chairs around it. The first thing I did was ask to use the restroom; I wanted to ditch Abdullah’s phone number so they wouldn’t be able to call him. The water was off, so instead of dropping the slip of paper down the squat toilet I ate it, and then returned to the office and took a seat in front of the desk.

  Like always I figured it was a good idea to introduce myself and learn everyone’s names in order to form a bond as quickly as possible. I used my Muslim name, Nassir, as if I’d been born with it. The man who’d answered the door was Ahmed. Across from him was the eldest of the group, Ali, who looked like he was still battling to keep his eyes open, and behind the desk were the two jihadis who looked about twenty, Hamed and Osama. Baby Face came in with hot tea for everybody and we all sat quietly, sipping our chai
like we were in London.

  “‘Sexy Lady,’” Hamed said in English, breaking the silence.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Shaggy, ‘Sexy Lady,’” Osama answered with a smile.

  And with that Hamed hit a key on the laptop in front of him and the song “Hey Sexy Lady” by Shaggy began to play. Within seconds every jihadi in the room was bopping his head to the beat, all while staring at me. Then Hamed turned the laptop toward me and I saw that they weren’t just playing the song, but the video, which was packed with sexy ladies—who I’d seen none of in almost eight months.

  “Sexy Lady!” I said, jumping to my feet and sticking my face right in the screen.

  Now I was bopping my head along with everyone else. It was at this moment—watching a ten-year-old Shaggy video with five head-bopping jihadis—that I knew I was safe.

  It didn’t take long to go from “Hey Sexy Lady” to the cell phone videos Hamed and Osama had taken at the front. As soon as they hit play I could tell they were fighting in Karm al-Jabal, where I’d been shooting the night before I was taken. What took longer to become obvious was just how brutal these two boys were on the battlefield.

  “Bashar,” Hamed said, pointing to the screen proudly.

  Standing in front of the camera was Hamed, pulling a human head out of a plastic bag. Judging from the way it was starting to decay, it looked like he’d been carrying it around for a while.

  I was disgusted, but tried to look impressed. The next video showed a badly mutilated body lying on the ground inside a building that had been completely destroyed by fighting.

  “Mine,” said Osama, pointing to himself with his thumb and smiling.

  “Very impressive,” I said, returning the smile.

  After a few hours of chilling, the jihadis’ general showed up, and everyone rose as he entered. He was probably only in his late twenties, and extremely gaunt. When his eyes hit me he looked shocked, and then broke into a pleased smile.

  As I shook his hand, two more jihadis entered behind him. These men were different from the guys who’d let me in and sat with me watching videos—they were older, with a commanding presence. As soon as they’d been filled in on the morning’s events they turned to me and asked for the phone number Ahmed had pulled from my pocket. Despite the fact that the number was currently in my belly being digested I started to empty my pockets onto the table as if the slip of paper were still in there, and when there was nothing left to take out I rifled through everything, pretending to look for it. I said it must have fallen to the ground outside and made a move to go and look for it, but they waved this off and told me to take a seat. By now I hadn’t slept in more than twenty-four hours, and everyone in the room could tell I was exhausted. They kept encouraging me to take a mattress in the next room and get some rest, but I refused—I had to make it to Hraytan for Theo.

  At one point I wandered outside into the courtyard where the hot sun was blazing down from directly above. I couldn’t remember when I’d last seen the sun, much less sat in it, and realizing I now could I took a seat against a massive pillar. It had to be close to a hundred degrees that day and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, but that didn’t keep me from turning my face up to stare at the brightest star in the galaxy through almost closed eyes.

  As I stared at it I started laughing, but within seconds I was crying as the reality of what I had gone through washed over me—along with the fact that it was finally, finally almost over. This made me laugh again, and then I was laughing and crying at the same time. Tears rushed down my face as I realized I didn’t have to hide them anymore. Three little boys stood before me as all this was unfolding, looking confused by the tears and the laughter, not sure if I was happy or sad.

  “Nassir,” someone called to me. It was the Sheikh, an old man who was the elder of the house. I just shook my head and pointed to the sky.

  “Sun,” I said in Arabic. “Sun!”

  I sat there like this for several minutes more, but eventually walked over to the Sheikh where he sat in one of the chairs in the shade. As I sat before him—ungroomed, wearing clothes that were too small and stained—I looked like a homeless person. It made me feel like an animal, out of place, and I found myself looking down, not wanting to meet his eyes. He placed his hand gently on my knee and said something very softly in Arabic. Then he took out some money and handed it to one of the little boys, who were his grandsons, sending him off on some kind of errand. When the boy returned he was carrying a black plastic bag, which he handed to his grandfather with the change. Then the boy fetched some bread, and from the bag the Sheikh produced a huge bunch of glossy green grapes and several beautiful yellow figs. Another grandson brought a metal dish, and I stared at the fruit as the Sheikh fixed a plate for me. The moment he handed it over I picked up a fig and bit into it like a Neanderthal, its juices dripping down my beard and all over my hands. Right away the Sheikh motioned for me to stop; he took a fig from the plate and, with tremendous compassion, began to peel it for me. I was so ashamed of my manners that I once again felt like an animal and began to cry, apologizing all the while for my actions. The old man seemed to understand everything I meant without knowing a word I uttered; he handed me the skinned fig and encouraged me to eat it with a piece of bread. I ate, and before I knew it I was dozing off and could refuse the offer of a bed no longer.

  I thought I’d pass out as soon as my head hit the pillow, but I didn’t. I just lay there facing the wall with my eyes open, stuck floating somewhere between consciousness and unconsciousness. I don’t know how long I lay like this, but eventually I heard my name being called from the doorway and turned over. Standing there were many of the men from before, along with two new faces. I stood up and walked over to them, and one of the newcomers greeted me in perfect English.

  “How are you?” he asked.

  Like the jihadi who’d let me in the door, his name was Ahmed. He was in his early twenties, with a cleanly shaven face and a cigarette burning in his hand. He had an innocent, kindhearted way about him. The other newcomer, Firas, was much the same, except he had a neatly trimmed beard and didn’t speak more than a few words of English. Once our introductions were complete, Ahmed, Firas, and I sat in the courtyard and talked. Ahmed explained that he himself was not a jihadi but a humanitarian who had once lived in the area; he had a degree in English from the University of Aleppo. Now he was a refugee, living in Turkey, but luckily for me he’d been in Aleppo visiting family and friends—one of these friends was Firas, who the men from the group had called in for help.

  Ahmed spoke and listened patiently; he seemed to understand the situation. But though both he and Firas seemed trustworthy, I still wasn’t comfortable telling them who I’d escaped from, sticking to my story that it had been a random gang of criminals. When I told them how long I’d been held they looked amazed.

  “Seven months!” Ahmed said, his eyebrows shooting to the sky.

  One of the first subjects he raised was Theo.

  “Do you know where the other journalist is?” he asked me. “Because the men want to go rescue him.”

  “No, I don’t know. I walked and zigzagged through the city for over half an hour before I came here. I need to get to Hraytan. I know a commander there who may be able to help him.”

  “Well, you are safe now,” he said.

  “Safe,” said Firas firmly, in English.

  “Now we are going to take you to a barber to get you cleaned up, and then to an internet café, so you can contact your family.”

  “I’m not going out there,” I told them, knowing al-Nusra could be scouring the city for me.

  “Then we will bring the barber here,” Ahmed said easily.

  Sure enough, a few minutes later a barber walked through the door with a box holding a mirror and his tools. I was so touched that it almost made me start crying all over again. The barber set himself up in the room leading to the office, and after walking me in there and getting me settled in a chair, Ahme
d told me he and Firas were leaving but promised they’d return in a few hours.

  Now I was forced to make a call. Clearly these men were the good guys from where I was sitting, and I trusted them, but this group was no match for Jabhat al-Nusra. Then I thought about what I would expect Theo to do if he’d gotten out and I was the one left back in the cell. I would expect him to do everything he could to help me, as soon as he was safely in the hands of the FSA.

  “Ahmed, you swear on the Koran that if I tell you something I will be safe?” I asked.

  “Yes, I already told you—you are safe,” he reassured me. “What is it?”

  “I know who had me,” I said, looking up at him.

  “Who? We will go get them!”

  “Jabhat al-Nusra.”

  “What?” he asked, his face going white.

  “I was with Jabhat al-Nusra.”

  “You escaped from Jabhat al-Nusra?” he said in awe. “Nobody escapes from Jabhat al-Nusra!”

  “I did.”

  “Come on, we have to talk some more.”

  He took me back to the chairs in the courtyard, where he and Firas exchanged a few words in Arabic. Then he turned his attention back to me as I watched the barber leave out the main door.

  “I am glad you told us, because this changes everything,” he explained. “The people you escaped from are going to come looking for you, so we have to get you out of here as soon as possible. We are a small group of just twenty men and the people you escaped from are just too strong. There is nothing we can do for your friend.”

  I knew he was right, but I did not let this deter me. His advice was to run for the border, but I insisted that I needed to get to Hraytan. That plan crumbled a couple of hours later, when we received a visit from a few elders who informed us that Hraytan was completely besieged by the regime: it was impossible to get in or out. It was only upon receiving this news that I agreed to head for Turkey. I had done all I could do for Theo here.

  Ahmed then left with Firas and promised to return in a few hours so we could discuss a plan to get me out of Syria first thing in the morning. The clock was now ticking not only for me, but for every man in that factory; if al-Nusra discovered I was there, time would be up for all of us.