Kidnapped by Ansar Al-Islam: How Scott Taylor
Survived and Was Saved in Iraq
By: Christopher Deliso
http://www.antiwar.com/deliso/?articleid=3606
Kidnapped by Ansar Al-Islam: How Scott Taylor
Survived and Was Saved in Iraq by Christopher
Deliso balkanalysis.com Veteran Canadian war
reporter Scott Taylor has to be one of the luckiest
men alive right now. Although his long experience
in war zones in the Balkans and Iraq has been
marked by many narrow escapes, last week's
kidnapping and torture by one of the world's most
notorious Islamic mujahedin groups, in the middle
of a pitched battle in lawless Iraq, tops them all.
This interview, conducted by phone on Friday,
should be read in conjunction with the narrative
Taylor himself has penned describing his
imprisonment and release. It builds on the
testimony he provides therein, while also
including previously unreported vital information
regarding the event.
Chris Deliso: Scott, I'm very
glad that you survived this ordeal and that we're
able to be speaking with you today. How are you
feeling? Scott Taylor: Well, I'm still pretty
banged up and exhausted, but I'll pull through. CD:
Glad to hear that. Now, I know you're tired, so we
don't need to go through the entire narrative again
of what happened to you, readers can check it on
your site, but I do want to expand on some
intriguing points, and first of all get some
background. So first of all, how long were you in
Iraq before being kidnapped? ST: Well, we arrived
in Iraq earlier on the day, the 7th of September,
that I was kidnapped. I came together with a
Turkish journalist, Zeynep Tugrul, who works for
the big daily newspaper Sabah. The whole thing was
supposed to have been arranged by the Iraqi Turkmen
Front, whose representatives I've known for a long
time. Since I was in Ankara already, I saw this as
our window of opportunity. I knew that the Turkmen
north, and especially Tal Afar, are almost unknown
to Western reporters. No one had really been there,
and now the U.S. was on the verge of a major action
there. I had a local contact and a place to stay,
and I was also going to present a new book I've
just completed on the history of the Turkmen
population in Iraq.
The Unknown Tal Afar
CD: What is this area like? I have never heard
news reports
mentioning any fighting there until now. ST: Tal
Afar is an amazing place ?Äì when I visited in June
to do research for the book, I found there were no
hotels. Imagine, a city of 400,000 people, with not
one hotel! It's a closed little corner of northern
Iraq, the place that time forgot. I kept thinking
that National Geographic should send in a team and
do a story on this place. You have people living in
houses that are 400, 500 years old, mud-bricked -
I seriously felt like I was back in Biblical times
being there. CD: Sounds lovely. When did this
idyllic little backwater start to pose a problem
for the U.S. war effort? ST: The U.S. had had
serious problems in Tal Afar back in June 2003,
when the building that was originally a CPA
facility was destroyed by a massive car bomb. It
was so big that it took 12 helicopters just to
remove all the casualties - but there had been no
report on this. A year later, they walked me
through the rubble. At that time June 2004, I heard
that the resistance was already active. They were
bragging about killing three Americans a week,
though I can't verify that claim.
The Plan Goes Awry
CD: So you entered Iraq from Turkey? ST:
Affirmative. CD: And the Iraqi Turkmen Front was
escorting you? ST: Well, the plan was that we would
be met at the border by a car and driver from the
ITF, with a small armed escort. But when these
failed to materialize, we had to take a taxi all
the way to Mosul. CD: How far was that? ST: It's
about 1.5 hours to Mosul. When we got there, we
stopped in for lunch at the U.S. Air Base where I
have a Canadian contractor buddy. I learned from
him that all the U.S. second line repair mechanics
had been sent to Tal Afar in advance, in
anticipation of possible fighting. So we knew the
push was imminent, and in fact some people we
talked to were saying that the town had already
been closed. I was told that the Americans intended
to "clean house" in Tal Afar in the very near
future. So we tried to call the ITF guys in Mosul
to arrange a quick ride up to Tal Afar, but lost
time because of the usual phone problems you
encounter in Iraq - so it was starting to get
dark. We had enough time, but only just. I was
thinking if we could just get there we'll be OK,
even if the U.S. did attack, I would be in a safe
place and film the battle from there. CD: Why did
you think that? Did you not get a sense that
tensions have increased since your last trip? ST:
Actually, all things considered, I thought this
would be the safest of all possible options in
Iraq, Baghdad, Fallujah, Najaf, etc. ... I had a
good, trustworthy contact, who lived in a
relatively quiet suburb of the town. I'd stayed
with him in June and was accepted with open arms. I
figured I'd be among friends.
The Fatal Mistake
CD: At that time, in June, were there any signs that
Tal Afar might someday boil over? Was there much of
a resistance established in the area back then? ST:
Sure, I sensed a lot of tension in the air. I had
been told by Jashar that I'd be safe with him. But
even walking around, I could see the hatred on the
streets; the locals would look at me, and think I
was an American. But being with him, I felt safe.
As for the resistance, they were already
stockpiling arms at that point. I mean, they had to
be, the size and scope of munitions sources that
I saw when kidnapped last week indicated to me that
this resistance campaign had to have been planned
for months. I don't know, perhaps I'm the only
Western journalist with military background and
training to have seen how their operation works,
how extensive it is. CD: But you didn't get the
sense of a qualitative difference at the beginning
of this trip compared to previous ones, i.e., in
terms of danger or the way you were treated by
locals? ST: The fatal mistake was in not knowing
that the U.S.-trained Iraqi police were in
collusion with the resistance. When we got to the
outskirts of Tal Afar, it was about quarter past
7:00 on Tuesday night 7 September. There were
around a dozen Iraqi policemen monitoring the
checkpoint on the road going into the town. Scared
civilians were trying to get out, because everyone
knew that the big battle with U.S. forces was
imminent. The city had basically been given over to
heavily armed resistance fighters. Assuming that
the U.S.-trained police would help us, we asked
them to help us get in touch with Jashar. They
seemed happy to do so, and told us to get into a
waiting car filled with masked gunmen. One of them
said, "we will take you to Doctor Jashar, please
do not be afraid." CD: Masked gunmen? Didn't that
set off alarm bells for you? ST: Well, at first I
thought that these men belonged to a special police
force or something, and didn't worry too much. But
then, further inside the city, we saw that the
streets were lined with other heavily armed masked
fighters - the fabled resistance. We were taken
to a resistance safe house, where they accused us
of being spies and confiscated everything we had
- cameras, equipment, identifying documents, etc.
There they fed us, nearly executed me for being a
"Jewish spy," and then hustled us on to another
safe house, where they relieved me of my money and
interrogated me at length as to what I was doing in
Tal Afar. The leader of the group, who identified
himself as the "Emir" (leader), told me to sleep.
"I will check your story," he said. "If you are
telling the truth, we will release you - if not,
you die." Well, it turned out that our story did
check out, but unfortunately for us the emir was
liquidated in his Land Cruiser by a Predator
missile during the battle that followed. So our
release was delayed by several painful days while
his men argued over what to do with us.
The American Buildup
CD: Right. We'll get to the rest
of that story later. First, can you tell us what
had happened to precipitate the battle in the days
before your arrival in Tal Afar? ST: During the
previous week, there were bits and pieces in the
media about ongoing attacks. The resistance had
destroyed some U.S. armored vehicles, and after
some serious skirmishing they had taken control of
the city. Although the U.S. had an air base 5 km
from Tal Afar, inside the city itself they had no
presence. And so the U.S. tried to mount a limited
operation using what looked like "official" Iraqi
defense forces, but were really just Kurdish
peshmergas in new uniforms. But this strategy
failed. The cannon fodder Kurds were defeated by a
well organized Islamic resistance. In fact, the day
before I was kidnapped, they had beheaded 30
prisoners, a lot of them Kurds. The Americans then
realized they had bitten off more than the Kurds
could chew. A second Stryker armored vehicle
battalion was sent up from Mosul, and it was
supported by air strikes that began on Wednesday,
lasting through Thursday and Friday.
The Scope of the Insurgency
CD: Based on your experiences, what
can you say about the composition of the resistance
in that part of Iraq? What are their motivations
and goals? ST: The core of the resistance was made
up of Islamic religious fundamentalists. Most are
Turkmen, but note that they are not Turkmen
nationalists. According to the leader, who told me
that their group is in fact part of Ansar Al-Islam,
Osama and Al-Zarqawi are their brothers. So
religion supercedes nationalism. While many of the
fighters may be Turkmen, they are fighting for
Allah, and they are cooperating with anyone else,
be it Kurd or Arab, similarly motivated by jihad
against the Americans. CD: So after all the
American talk about Islamic terrorism thriving in
Iraq, this was the real thing, huh? ST: When I saw
the level of organization and apparent troop
numbers, and how everyone is prepared to die,
these guys aren't bullshitting. All the stuff we
were told before the war about how the Ba'athists
would all gladly die for Saddam, well that
obviously didn't turn out to be the case. But these
guys, these fundamentalists, are fighting to die.
This is a very potent weapon. Worse, the American
invasion has actually created this terrorism
because it substantiated over time all the ugliest
scenarios that the radical clerics were warning
about. People being crushed by tanks, U.S. soldiers
breaking down doors, violating the sanctity of the
home, abusing civilians, etc., seeing all this go
down has an effect. And so the strong anti-American
attitude of the clerics started to seem justified
to previously disinterested local people by events
on the ground, and you have religion emerge as the
single cause capable of uniting members of ethnic
groups who'd previously been fighting only one
another. CD: So, as you've said many times in the
past, the Americans have brought this upon
themselves. Did you witness anything to attest to
this new cooperation among the resistance? ST:
Everywhere we went, it was obvious that the
militants had the full cooperation of the
U.S.-trained Iraqi police. Whenever we transited
outside the city, to the corners of Mosul or the
checkpoints, the cops would see us bound in the
back seats - and offer cigarettes to our captors!
We'd be flanked by these gauntlets of teenage boys,
cheering and banging on the roofs. It was clear
that there's a lot of cooperation between Arab
police and Turkmen fundamentalists. At one point,
our Turkmen captors handed us off to some young and
violent Arab "pupils," so they could go back to Tal
Afar for more fighting. There was coordination with
local police, of course, but interestingly enough
the resistance group at that house included Arab
fundamentalists and senior Ba'athists. My
co-prisoners, the Turkish journalist and an Iraqi
Arab, a driver for UNICEF, knew the languages being
spoken so I learned what was going on.
Homicide at the Hands of the Taxpayer
CD: So if the resistance
is so large and diverse, and is at very least
supported by Iraqi police "loyal" to the U.S., what
chance do the Americans actually have? ST: I
learned that the Iraqi police on the checkpoints
were contributing part of their salary to the
resistance's local leader, the emir. After all,
they're whacking the crap out of these police
recruits all over the place throughout Iraq, so
it's partially protection money. One guy was
laughing at me and saying how ironic it is that the
Americans are being attacked with RPGs purchased
with their own money. Sad to say, the U.S. taxpayer
is actually funding the Iraqi resistance. By paying
these cops' salaries, U.S. taxpayers are actually
helping to buy the weapons that are killing
American soldiers every day. CD: Incredible. It
can't get worse than that. ST: I don't know, maybe
it can. Consider also that my mujahedin captors
told me in advance the exact time the U.S. air
strikes would hit them. I said, "How the hell you
know?" To which the guy laughed and said, "Don't be
stupid, of course we know." They have infiltrated
U.S. command even.
The Mujahedin's Unbeatable Tactic: Death
CD: Now I can understand,
hypothetically anyway, this mujahedin ideal of
dying for one's religion, and of there being some
glory in that after the fact. But on a tactical
level, don't they realize just going out to get
killed is stupid? What about living to fight
another day? I mean, this isn't the way my
childhood hero Francis Marion would have done it.
ST: You know why? It's because they want to die.
They are not interested in saving lives. And they
have a constantly replenished supply of willing
martyrs to tap into. CD: But tactically, if they
wanted to inflict maximum damage to the Americans,
certainly wouldn't they at least try to learn from
their mistakes? ST: Well, they have been learning
from their mistakes to some extent. The resistance
is better organized and more effective than it was
before. But there are many things they could learn
that they simply don't. Take the Americans' night
vision goggle advantage - if you read Tommy
Franks' book he talks about how the Apaches were
hit in Nasiriyah: the pilots actually couldn't see
anything because they were blinded from too many
lights being on in the town. It interfered with
their night vision. However, the resistance
fighters who imprisoned us thought they were being
smart to turn all the lights off, failing to
grasp that the U.S. can actually see better when
it's dark out. They could have flooded the place
with lights and done better in the battle. Yet at
the end of the day, the point is that they've got
the courage and the will to die in battle. Indeed,
at one point when we were being switched from car
to car at a desert convoy rendezvous, two of the
cars were loaded up with explosives and four
aspiring suicide bombers, all set to go back to Tal
Afar and wreak carnage on the Americans. And you
know what? The ones left behind with us were so
sad. It was like they were envious that it wasn't
their turn to die yet. CD: You really can't fight
against that, can you. ST: Not for an army like the
American one, whose soldiers are fighting to live.
And the worst thing for the U.S. is that their
heavy-handed tactics have radicalized the
population, so that local Turkmen guys who
previously had no strong religious fervor are now
willing to die as martyrs. Unlike what the Pentagon
is saying, I saw no foreign fighters there. When we
were imprisoned, we were housed by local people, in
their own homes. Their mothers and wives were doing
the cooking and exhorting their sons to go out and
die as martyrs. It's hopeless for the U.S. CD: Did
you find out if the U.S. had taken any casualties
during the Tal Afar battle? Did the mujahedin have
anything to cheer about aside from their newly
created martyrs? ST: I had heard that they downed
one helicopter when I got there, and afterwards
they also claimed to have hit three more, though I
can't verify that. A lot of the time we were hooded
or blindfolded, after all, and I couldn't see much
of the actual fighting.
The Confusing Human Dimension
CD: Let's get back to your experience as
a prisoner. From what I understand, you were
transferred to numerous houses between Tuesday and
Saturday, threatened with death on several
occasions while also told that you'd be freed on
others, tortured and interrogated at length before
finally being freed on Saturday. ST: Correct. CD:
As I understand from your article, the most
difficult part of the whole ordeal was not the
beatings but the psychological torment, no? ST:
Yes. They played mind games with me by threatening
to kill me, and then saying I would be released,
and so on. The mental pressure is incredible,
preparing yourself for death and then getting a
reprieve - only to be condemned again soon
thereafter. Some things I understood as a soldier,
like the need to blindfold or handcuff me. I didn't
resent that. But it was the excruciating mental
torture that was the worst, even more than the
heavy beatings and physical intimidation. Perhaps
the strangest thing of all was the juxtaposition of
brutal terroristic tactics with this sweet Middle
Eastern hospitality. In between the beatings they
would treat us very well. They never denied me
water, and as the guests, we would be served dinner
before them. And good dinners too, I might add. CD:
That must have been very disconcerting. ST: Indeed.
I remember on Thursday night, there was a cool
breeze coming in from the window, and I was lying
on my side, pretending to sleep. I noticed the
terrorist who had been assigned to guard me get up
and walk over toward me, though I still pretended
to be asleep. I was afraid it was time for more
beatings. But you know what the guy does? He
reaches around and pulls the blanket up on me, as
you would for a kid; apparently, he thought I might
be cold from the window. So this kind of
diametrically opposed behavior was really
confusing. Even though they were bloodthirsty
militants, they did have a human side to them. I
mean, even when they're threatening, "You're going
to die, this is your last supper," they're beaming
because they've given you the best part of the
chicken! Of course, for them dying is a wonderful
thing. So the mindset is like, "I'm giving you the
best part of the chicken and I'm going to kill you
- what the hell else do you want?" CD: (Laughing)
Yes indeed.
Saved by the Internet?
CD: I understand that throughout your captivity the
mujahedin tried to ascertain your identity,
frequently charging you with being an Israeli spy.
Why did they always call you an Israeli spy? Could
they just not think of anything more damning to
accuse a foreigner of? ST: Pretty much. They didn't
know who I was, since all of my gear had been
swallowed up in rubble after the American air
strikes on Tal Afar. I think it helped them to work
up the energy they needed to beat a defenseless,
handcuffed prisoner. CD: But you were able to
convince them finally that you were indeed just a
Canadian journalist, right? ST: Well, I guess so.
After torturing me, the mujahedin gave me a pen and
paper and told me to write down all the Web sites
that might help prove my case. Even though they
told me I had "failed the test" afterwards, I'm
pretty sure from their behavior that they found
enough articles there to vindicate me. A later
interrogator who questioned me at length was
especially interested in why I hadn't denounced the
"imperialist occupation" of Iraq. He was very clear
about this word. Come on, of course I have
criticized the occupation on numerous occasions.
Thinking fast, I specifically referred them to one
of our earlier interviews, "The Empire Strikes
Out," as well as the other interviews on
Antiwar.com and on your site, besides other
articles I've published. CD: So, do you think that
these interviews helped persuade the mujahedin to
release you? ST: I can't prove that, but I've got
to think it was probably a big help. At very
least I think it kept me alive at various points
when they easily could have killed me, and would
have. And technically, it was this last group with
the "anti-imperialist" leader that released me. So
the specific articles I gave them, plus what you
get when doing a search for my name and Iraq, yeah,
I got to think that it helped swing things in my
favor. So, thanks. CD: Wow, that is great,
the moment we journalists live for.
The Mysterious Release
CD: Aside from that, do you know how your
sudden release was expedited? I know the mujahedin
didn't tell you anything about what was going on.
ST: As far as I know, my association with the Iraqi
Turkmen Front and their local leader helped get me
released, and to get out of the country alive.
After all, when the mujahedin threw me into that
waiting cab, I was stuck with no documents and
almost no money, in a very volatile city in
northern Iraq. CD: Where did the cabbie take you?
ST: The decision had been made that I'd be sent to
the main office of the ITF in Mosul. They were in
contact with the Turkish government, as was Zeynep,
who had been released before me and was trying her
best to help me get out too. CD: But do you think
some negotiations between higher powers and your
captors had anything to do with it? ST: I don't
know who pulled the strings, if anyone, and I don't
want to know. The stakes in this game are so high
now. There are all kinds of known and unknown
elements involved in Iraq, and it's not even
desirable to think about it. If someone put a gun
to my head and asked how I was released, I wouldn't
know what to say. After all, the Ansar Al-Islam is
not known for releasing foreigners. No way would
these people, motivated purely by Islam, have done
it for a ransom. CD: When you got to the Turkish
border, I understand an officer from the Canadian
Embassy was waiting for you. Were you debriefed by
the intelligence services? Has the CIA shown an
interest in your adventure with the mujahedin? ST:
No, I wasn't debriefed by the CIA. We had to give a
statement to the Turkish police, and discuss with
my government's embassy staff, of course. But
really, all we had was a worm's eye view the whole
time, mostly being handcuffed, hooded and
blindfolded, with no idea where we were being
taken. I wouldn't be much use to any of them.
Reflections and Thoughts on the Future
CD: Scott, what can you predict regarding the
situation in
northern Iraq, especially considering the U.S.
promise to "pacify" the country before January
elections? ST: I can tell you, Mosul's about to
blow. The resistance can operate with impunity, and
is growing, and the Americans don't have the
numbers to cope, what was once 22,000 soldiers
in the area with the 82nd Airborne has now been
whittled down to just 6,000 soldiers with this
replacement Stryker Brigade. So they're stretched
too thin to deal with the coming major insurgency.
The Americans are in fact almost invisible, you
don't see them on the streets of Mosul. They've
ceded the underground control of the city to
various factions of rebels, who are all working
together, exchanging weapons, intel, hostages, etc.
CD: It doesn't sound good for the Americans. Tell
me, after this experience, will you go back to
Iraq? ST: Well, I don't have a passport, so it's
irrelevant. But seriously, no way. At least not in
the near future. It's just way too unstable. Even
for me, with all my experience and contacts -
after almost 20 trips to the country - seeing
what I did in terms of the organized and
fundamentalist-minded resistance, it's just way too
dangerous. CD: This must have been pretty tough for
your family. ST: Well, yes it was, but fortunately
my wife only knew about me being a prisoner for six
hours until I was released. After she herself was
released, Zeynep called my wife and said I was a
captive still, but not to worry. Six hours later I
was free, so my wife didn't have time to get too
distraught. And in the end, she took a
philosophical view. After all, aside from
everything else, I didn't have to pay for
transportation, hotels or food during my entire
Iraqi vacation. CD: Scott, you're a brave man ?Äì a
little crazy, but brave. Now get some rest. We need
you back in action. ST: Thanks, I will.
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