Killing the Killers Page 3
Foley was considered too experienced to let a kidnapping happen again. But while journalists from more established outlets like major television networks always travel with a security detail—usually made up of heavily armed former Special Forces operatives—freelance journalists such as Foley and Cantile cannot afford such a luxury, making them prime targets for kidnappers.
Since being taken hostage, the pair have attempted to escape at least twice. Both failed efforts were immediately followed by extreme torture. They are not the only journalists being held for ransom on this day, but Foley stands out among the captives for his calm demeanor—even fellow hostages will describe his countenance as stoic during his imprisonment. In fact, Foley is considered a leader, sharing the small portion of food given him each day and reenacting scenes from favorite movies to keep spirits high. Along with Foley, there are three other Americans—Time magazine journalist Steven Sotloff and two humanitarian workers, Peter Kassig, a former Army Ranger from Indianapolis, and Kayla Mueller, from Prescott, Arizona. The kidnappers are hoping to receive millions in ransom for these individuals.
On one occasion, James Foley did successfully escape, but let himself be recaptured when Cantile was unable to get away, knowing the photographer would be severely beaten for Foley’s success.
Now time has run out for the journalist. The only thing that can save him is immediate payment of the terrorists’ ransom demand. But 100 million euros—roughly $132 million—will not be forthcoming.
Paying ransom to terrorists is against United States law. Foley’s parents are secretly looking for a way to violate this law, but there has not been any payout. As the kidnappers await the ransom, they mentally torture Foley—repeatedly forcing him to don an orange jumpsuit and kneel for his execution, only to have the murder called off at the last moment. Foley has also been ordered to stand against a wall with his arms spread wide as if being crucified. He has been waterboarded, a type of torture which involves pouring liquid into a captive’s mouth and nose to the point of drowning. The terrorists do not want to kill James Foley, preferring the ransom. But that prospect has dimmed.
American journalist James Foley, who went missing in Syria on November 22, 2012, and was ultimately beheaded by ISIS.
One week ago, August 14, 2014, Foley’s captors emailed the journalist’s parents, stating that the lack of ransom payment would ultimately result in their son’s death. In New Hampshire, the elder Foleys cling to hope, believing there is still time to negotiate.
They are wrong.
* * *
The camera crew filming the kneeling James Foley is highly technical. Grainy footage is a thing of the past for these video experts. A high-definition lens holds the captive and his would-be executioner in perfect focus. There are no shadows on camera, the result of professional lighting meters and filters instead of just the natural illumination of the noonday sun. Precise audio captures every word and sound. The footage, taken on a hill outside what might be the northern Syrian city of Raqqa, will be downloaded and edited with other images and sounds, then packaged in a four-minute-and-forty-second video, ready to be shown worldwide on YouTube.
It is a savage scene of brutality.
“I wish I had more time,” Foley says into the camera. “I wish I could have the hope for freedom, to see my family once again.”
And then it happens. The knife blade flashes in the desert sun. Foley’s executioner grabs the back of the orange jumpsuit to keep his victim from squirming.
The beheading takes ten barbaric seconds. Windpipe, arteries, spine—all severed. There is no lack of blood. The camera records every moment. Millions around the world will soon watch this horrific sight.
The hooded executioner lets go of the orange jumpsuit. Foley’s torso falls forward onto the rocky soil. His severed head, face covered in blood, eyes closed, is placed on the small of his back and positioned for the benefit of the lens.
Eventually, after the filming ends, the kidnappers will dispose of James Foley in the desert. His body will never be found.
A single militant group steps forward to claim responsibility. They were once called “al-Qaeda in Iraq” but now go by the name of “the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.” The acronym is the name by which the world will soon know these killers and their vile acts: ISIS.
* * *
As James Foley lies dead in the dirt, his murderers celebrate their cowardly act. It is done, they claim, for the god of Islam. And many more will die under that belief.
Foley’s fellow hostages now know they may meet the same fate as the forty-year-old from New England. And that horror is present every second of every day.
CHAPTER TWO
AUGUST 20, 2014
MARTHA’S VINEYARD, MASSACHUSETTS
12:52 P.M.
“Good afternoon, everybody,” President Barack Obama greets the gathered members of the press. He stands before a blue backdrop in the Edgartown School cafeteria, the hastily organized press conference interrupting his summer vacation. An American flag is behind him to the right. The presidential seal is affixed to the podium. He spoke with the family of James Foley this morning, offering his condolences.
“Today, the entire world is appalled by the brutal murder of Jim Foley by the terrorist group ISIL,” the president begins.
Obama is referring to ISIS, using one of their many acronyms. The use of the “L” refers to “the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant,” a nod to the terrorist organization’s growing power throughout not just Syria but the entire Middle East.*
The Islamic State—also known as ISIS, ISIL, or Daesh—emerged from the remnants of al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), a local offshoot of al-Qaeda founded by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in 2004.† This terrorist organization faded into obscurity for several years after the surge of US troops to Iraq in 2007. But the end of the Iraq War and the subsequent withdrawal of most US troops from the region, instigated by President George W. Bush, saw the reemergence of AQI. The group quickly took advantage of growing instability in Iraq and Syria brought on by the US departure to carry out attacks and bolster its ranks, and soon changed its name to “the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria” (ISIS). But that is the English translation. Throughout the Middle East, the terrorists are known by the acronymic Arabic nickname “Daesh.”‡ The acronym sounds similar to other Arabic words meaning both “to trample down or crush” and “bigot,” depending upon the conjugation. ISIS detests that label and cuts out the tongue of anyone speaking it aloud.
The United States made an early attempt to halt the terrorist advance. On April 18, 2010, a joint operation of United States and Iraqi forces fired rockets that shattered the ISIS headquarters in Tikrit, Iraq. The subsequent commando raid uncovered intelligence that linked the terrorists with Osama bin Laden, who was still alive at the time.
That American and Iraqi attack caused the Islamic State in Iraq to flee underground. A cleric named Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was named the group’s new leader on May 16, 2010. The Islamic State was once al-Qaeda’s representative in Iraq, but that connection was severed upon bin Laden’s death. In this way, al-Baghdadi became the most powerful terrorist on earth, simultaneously declaring that he would avenge bin Laden’s assassination with one hundred acts of terror. But even as the terrorist organization spread into Syria in 2013, formally becoming the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, al-Baghdadi was nowhere to be seen.
* * *
For four years, ISIS’s leadership vanished, disappearing so completely that many wondered if it existed at all. This public silence led Iraqi authorities to make claims of al-Baghdadi’s death, though all were later found to be false.
But as the brutal death of James Foley can attest, ISIS is back with full ferocity.
Despite the growing threat, President Obama’s administration recognizes that it is not politically expedient to send troops into the region to halt the terrorist advance. The majority of Americans are opposed to military involvement in the Middle East. So despite the blatant kidnapping of four Americans, it is still US policy to downplay the ISIS threat.
Making matters even more difficult is the fact that Americans are not allowed to pay ransom to terrorists. So while parents of kidnap victims like James Foley try to find the millions of dollars demanded by the kidnappers, they risk going to jail if they do so. Even more heartbreaking for these helpless family members is that not only do many foreign governments allow the payment of ransom to free their citizens, in many cases it is the government itself that pays for their release.
For Barack Obama, today’s speech is a minor embarrassment—just two years ago he thought so little of the militant organization that he referred to ISIS as “the JV team,” placing them second in importance behind a weakened al-Qaeda in the terrorist pecking order.* But now the president has no choice but to admit that the organization, led by the forty-three-year-old Iraqi-born thug Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, is a genuine threat to the lives of free people everywhere.
“Let’s be clear,” says Obama. “They have rampaged across cities and villages, killing innocent, unarmed civilians in cowardly acts of violence. They abduct women and children, and subject them to torture and rape and slavery. They have murdered Muslims—both Sunni and Shia—by the thousands. They target Christians and religious minorities, driving them from their homes, murdering them when they can for no other reason than they practice a different religion.”
Obama continues. He is dressed in a blue blazer and light-blue shirt but no tie, having changed out of his more casual golf clothing for this public statement. Outside, the August afternoon is humid and hot, the air smelling of the Atlantic on this small coastal island off Massachusetts.
“The United States of America will continue to do what we must do to protect our people. We will be v
igilant and we will be relentless. When people harm Americans, anywhere, we do what’s necessary to see that justice is done.”
* * *
Almost seven thousand miles away, Kayla Mueller cannot hear the president’s words. The terrified twenty-six-year-old humanitarian worker is being held somewhere in a Syrian terrorist jail—like James Foley, she is a kidnap victim of ISIS. In fact, she knows Foley and was once held in the same compound as her fellow American. The US government is aware of her plight, but the media has only been told that an American aid worker has been kidnapped. Neither her name nor the fact that she is a woman has been made public. The taking of non–Middle Eastern female hostages is rare. Only one other American woman has been kidnapped: Jill Carroll, a freelance writer for the Christian Science Monitor, was released after three months, so there is hope for Kayla—even though she has now been held for one year.
Kayla is chained in a room with a rotating number of other female captives. The aid worker has learned to dread the sound of her prison door opening. The squeak of hinges might mean something as simple as a meal being delivered—or it might mean that torture is about to be inflicted.
Or it might mean another brutal rape for one of the women in this dungeon.
Kayla’s ISIS captors treat their female hostages as sex slaves, considering it their right under sharia law to force themselves upon the young women. ISIS soldiers regularly defile not only these captives but any female not of the Sunni Muslim faith, often violating girls not even yet in their teens. Thus far, Kayla has been spared because a white female American hostage is quite a prize. Not just any terrorist can claim her for his own.
Indeed, no less than Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi himself has designs on the young aid worker. The ISIS leader is a sadistic bully, an overweight man with a long salt-and-pepper beard, four wives, and a growing lust for his American hostage. He is forty-three and has no concerns about forcing sex upon a woman almost two decades younger. The terrorist believes that Kayla is an infidel and it is his right under sharia law to marry her and take her as his own.
* * *
Kayla Mueller was once a cheerful brown-haired humanitarian of Christian faith, which she formulated in Prescott. There, her father owns an auto repair business and her mother is a retired nurse. Throughout college at Northern Arizona University, Kayla was active in the campus ministry, then put that faith into action following graduation. Working for a number of relief agencies, Kayla traveled the world, enduring deprivation and hardship for no financial gain. For her, there was no better way to pursue her calling of helping those in need.
Since graduation, the brown-eyed, petite Kayla has served in India, Israel, and then Turkey. She flashed her broad smile often for refugees, offering them hope. There were no politics attached to her desire to help others—Muslims, Hindus, Jews, and fellow Christians all benefited from the food, education, and medical help Kayla’s assistance provided. “As long as I live,” the young woman once told an Arizona newspaper, “I will not let suffering be normal.”
* * *
It was December 2012 when Kayla Mueller arrived in the Middle East to work with Syrian refugees. Syrian president Bashar al-Assad had begun a brutal crackdown on his own people that included bombings and mass murder, sparking a civil war. As soldiers from countries like Russia flowed in to join the fighting, thousands of Syrian noncombatants fled north into Turkey and claimed refugee status. A group of Muslim terrorists took advantage of the chaos to leave their sanctuary in Iraq and secretly invade Syria in large numbers. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria has no wish to join the civil war, or to defend Syria from other nations. Its goal is nothing less than capturing these wastelands for itself and then forming a new “caliphate”—a duplication of what happened following the death of the prophet Muhammad in 632 AD.
ISIS always enacts sharia law, a severe religious code dating back to the days of Muhammad, which requires women to cover themselves from head to toe and remain subservient to men at all times. For one and all, male or female, even small crimes like swearing can be punished by forty lashes with a switch that rakes the bare back and leaves lifelong scars. More severe crimes, like theft, can result in a hand being cut off with a sword. Adultery is punishable by death through stoning. But ISIS is not content solely to inflict ancient punishments. It also imposes its own brand of justice in modern ways on the conquered people of Syria and Iraq, using implements like power tools and electric cattle prods.
And, as in the days following the prophet’s demise, it is prophesied that the region will be ruled by a caliph granted the name “Abu Bakr”—“the Upright.” Thus, the current leader of ISIS is the barbaric Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. But that name is an affectation. He was born Ibrahim Awad Ibrahim Ali al-Badri al-Samarrai. Fictional or not, his name will soon become synonymous with terror. And the fact that he is a murderer and serial rapist does not seem to bother his followers in the slightest.
* * *
A little more than a year ago, on August 3, 2013, Kayla Mueller decided to venture from the relative safety of Turkey into ISIS-controlled northern Syria. She is working for the Danish Refugee Council and a group called Support for Life. Based in the small town of Antakya, thirty miles north of the Syrian border, Kayla is restless. More than 2.5 million refugees have fled the war, and the camps are filled to capacity. Like the other aid workers, Kayla performs a multitude of tasks, but she most enjoys playing and painting with the children. Conditions are terrible. Heat, flies, a lack of plumbing and electricity, and the constant sight of human suffering are daily facts of life.
Kayla knows that crossing into Syria is an extreme gamble, but she is curious to see the countryside for herself. Refugees have told her of lush green valleys and verdant hills. They speak of the ancient city of Aleppo, where the once-lovely Queiq River still flows gently—though now the water is filled with the decomposing bodies of those massacred by ISIS. The unfortunates are often executed with their hands behind their backs, tape across the mouth, and a shotgun blast to the head before being shoved into the water to rot.
And yet, on a hot August morning where the temperature reaches ninety-eight degrees, Kayla Mueller believes a journey to this dangerous place is a worthy way to spend a Saturday. She pleads with her boyfriend to let her make the trip. She has been in the slums of India and Palestine, and now she wishes to see with her own eyes the suffering of Syrian refugees displaced by ISIS.
In Syria, kidnapping of foreigners is a daily fact of life. There is no such thing as guaranteed safety. Kayla Mueller knows this. She is also aware that the growing ISIS threat in Aleppo is just a thirty-minute drive on the other side of the Turkish border.
So, nine months into her mission in Turkey, Kayla Mueller gambles with her life. She crosses into Syria, traveling by bus with her Syrian boyfriend, Omar Alkhani, a photographer whose job is providing telecommunications expertise to a group of physicians known as Doctors Without Borders. Kayla’s plan is a simple dash over the border to help Omar fix a broken satellite dish at a hospital outside Aleppo. The couple agrees that she will not speak during the journey, for fear of letting those around her know she is American. Then they will sprint back home to Antakya before night falls.
But difficulty installing the equipment means that the long day grows dark before the work is done. Crowds at the border signal a long wait before getting back across. Rather than chance lonely desert roads at night, Mueller and Alkhani elect to wait until morning for their return. Kayla spends the evening speaking to refugee women about their plight.
On August 4, the pair is driven from the improvised surgical center in a vehicle bearing the Doctors Without Borders logo. Their destination is a bus stop. The taxi driver is Syrian and knows the way. Another aid worker from Spain joins them on the short trip.
The four never make it.
On the outskirts of Aleppo, a car full of ISIS fighters, clad all in black, begins following the taxi. They soon force it off the road. The terrorists step out of their vehicle and approach. Their faces are covered, their AK-47 assault rifles at the ready. Mueller and her three companions are taken prisoner. Hoods are placed over their heads. They are driven to a terrorist compound and put in chains. Kayla and her boyfriend are held in separate cells. The two are not allowed to speak with each other, but signal that they are still alive by coughing loudly enough for the other to hear.