Paul Wood

Clueless in Syria

As Isis lose ground the other Islamist militias have a vested interest in keeping the civil war going

The other day I was speaking to a Kurdish journalist who was held in Isis captivity for ten months. He and a colleague had had the bad luck to run into an Isis checkpoint in Syria. ‘How do you perform the midday prayer?’ they were asked after their car was waved to a halt. Unable to answer — they were not believers — they were immediately beaten around the head. Then one of the jihadis from the checkpoint was put into the back of their car and they were told to drive to the Isis base. The fighter had a pistol pointed at them the whole time, which was superfluous because he was also wearing a suicide belt. ‘Make a move and I’ll detonate myself,’ he said. ‘We’ll all die together.’


Paul Wood and Lara Prendergast discuss the Syrian crisis:


At the base, the emir, or commander, was so delighted to have two infidel prisoners that he got on to his radio to spread the good news. ‘All units, all units,’ he gleefully proclaimed: ‘We have two journalists. Thanks be to God.’ He ordered them to be handcuffed, blindfolded and taken to jail. It was the start of an ordeal of constant beatings and death threats that came to an end ten months later when the Kurds arranged a prisoner swap. Some time after they arrived in the cell, a new inmate joined them. It was the emir who had ordered their detention. It seems he had been declaring rich local Muslims to be infidels in order to steal their money — but had overplayed his hand and was now in his own jail.

The emir was a Syrian in his late twenties. When the revolution started he had volunteered for the Free Syrian Army.

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