Original subtitles

We were in amongst some pretty extreme guys.

We needed to get the hell out of there.

They were like robots programmed to kill.

I was the enemy.

There is nothing but the fear to pull. You will not hear another sound.

His life was in my hands. I'm faced with something that goes beyond the bullet.

At that moment, there was no two people that could have been closer.

100 % sure that we would kill.

All I was doing is willing myself to go into the black to escape the pain.

Tell my son I didn't cry.

I'm a Canadian journalist, ex -soldier, been a war correspondent for 20 years.

I've been covering Iraq extensively, before, during, and after the U .S.

intervention.

I'm always working unembedded. I never went in with the American forces.

I was diplomatic correspondent of a Turkish newspaper.

When we first met, it was the meeting of two journalists.

But then, you know, we became friends because I went to Iraq many times, and

was also coming.

How much longer do we have?

About two hours.

covering the deteriorating situation in northern Iraq.

The story we wanted to get was the one that was happening all over Iraq and not

being told, and that was, of course, the human suffering.

If people want to make a decision about the war, they need the whole truth.

In 2004, Iraq was a dangerous place to go because, for example, you

go to a market and you buy fruit, and then five minutes later you get the news

that that market was bombed.

Kidnappings have been on the rise, there's no question.

I did understand the danger.

But at this moment, I still felt, particularly in the North, with the

that I had, I would be safe.

As an ex -soldier, I loved the military. It was this dual adventure slash sowing

of wild oats.

Proving to myself that you were capable of meeting that physical challenge.

The plan was to go to the American military base.

I meet up with a contact that I met on the previous trip.

This is Zainab.

Very conspiratorially, he said, can you keep a secret?

And, of course, we assured him that we could.

And he said, we're about to hit Tal Afar.

We're about to clean it out.

You don't want to be anywhere near there for the next 24 to 48 hours.

I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not going to lie to anybody. There is an

adrenaline rush when you hear that.

As a journalist, of course, I thought that it's a big news.

I have to be there.

So we left, assured him we would go nowhere near it, and then tried to find

way to get there.

As we were driving into Mosul, something made me remember that it was going to

be my son's birthday the following day.

It's Kirk's birthday tomorrow.

Scott often talked about his son Kirk.

He's beautiful.

So I knew that he's a loving father.

It's mom's eyes.

There's a downside to being a father with a family and still covering wars.

It was necessary to go back in and report firsthand on what was going on

there was no other foreign correspondents covering the north at

In this remote corner of northwestern Iraq, Turkish is quite widely spoken as

Kurdish and Arabic.

I had contacts and had covered the ground in Tal Afar. And Zeynep, she

Turkish, knew the area, knew the players.

But we still had enough daylight to get to Tal Afar.

But we had difficulty finding a taxi driver that would take us there.

Whenever they heard the word Tal Afar, they were making the movement, no, no,

no, no.

We could hear the word Mujahideen, Mujahideen, Mujahideen.

The mujahideen is a generic term which Americans tend to label insurgent or

terrorist or al -Qaeda or whatever.

Often these guys see themselves as fighters for Islam, defending their

defending their country.

That probably should have set off some alarm bells.

But then finally we found a taxi driver.

$30.

He just said, OK, if you give me the money, yeah, I'll do something crazy and

take you to Tel Afer.

At this juncture in the trip, I felt that I would be the one looking after

Zainab, in a sense. I mean, I'm the older one, I have more contacts, more

experience. It was more or less my show.

My plan was to get inside the city, hook up with my contacts, Dr. Yashar, and

from there...

I mean, being safe about it, observe what was about to happen.

Most people would think it was insane to go straight into it.

Yet, in my experience, quite often, being right at the vortex, you're

in the eye of the storm, and it's been safe.

And all the way in, we saw cars coming out down that highway, full of people

with furniture, bedding, cars packed.

I was thinking that, oh, they got the news.

They also knew that the Americans were going to Tel Aviv.

So I'm doing the right thing going there.

We arrived, and there was a police checkpoint on the outside of town.

While I was walking, I was feeling, again, safe because he was a policeman

by the Americans.

I said, excuse me, we would like to go to the heart of Tel Afer.

He seemed to recognize the name right away, Dr. Yashuk.

But instead of directing the way, he just made a hand movement

to some guys with masks and Kalashnikovs.

Maybe I was willfully deceiving myself, but I...

believe them to be a special forces unit of the police in Iraq.

Our own Canadian commandos were balaclavas in operations like that, so

didn't alarm me.

When I look back on the whole thing,

that was probably the one critical moment where we could have made a

that point. We still were not in the trap fully.

we could have still taken a taxi back, back to Mosul.

So it was basically no one on the streets except for small groups of armed

basically Mujahideen, and our guys that were beeping the horn and waving to

these guys who instinctively waved back.

That struck me as odd, that Mujahideen fighters would be waving to the police.

We pulled up to a building. We all got out of the vehicle.

They were being very friendly, assisting us, taking our bags, helping us through

around the corner to this gate.

And it was like going through a portal.

This was not Dr. Yashar's house.

This was a Mujahideen fighting position.

Everything changed.

It was suddenly very obvious that the Mujahideen controlled the town and the

police were certainly in on what was happening inside Tanafa.

The lanky guy who had welcomed us into his car turned out to be the emir, which

means the leader.

He was going to come back and deal with us at some point down the road.

Zainab sort of whispered to me that, you know... Scott, they think we're spies.

And in which case, of course, I'm... reassuring her. When they talk to Dr.

Yashir and look at our documents, they'll be fine. We'll straighten this

We were not that very much afraid, actually, because I was believing they

learn that we are journalists.

At that point, I wasn't worried about what the Mujahideen were going to do to

me.

We know that the Americans are about to attack, and this would be a likely

target.

Unlike my original plan, we're on the front line.

We needed to get our identities established as quick as we could and get

hell out of there.

Suddenly there was a lot of commotion inside, people yelling.

There was about four of them coming into the courtyard.

They just pushed him to the end of the courtyard.

They were like robots programmed to kill.

And then the unmistakable cocking of a Kalashnikov.

And I just froze.

At that moment, there is, I mean, nothing but the trigger pull.

You will not hear another sound.

Time stands still and at the same time it races. My brain goes into an

overdrive. I mean, it's arguing with itself. It's trying to find out which

emotion. Saying goodbye to your family, wondering just where did we go wrong.

And you know there's like no time.

So I just thought that I have to make them understand that Scott is a human.

With love, with a heart.

So I suddenly remembered Kurt, and I just yelled out, stop, he has a son.

And they just stopped at that moment.

Had she not yelled, they would have shot me.

And to come back from it, to be pulled back from the abyss, and then to be told

to sit back down.

The relief is fighting with the emotion of still trying to come to grips with

what the hell just happened.

And then Demir came back.

And made his decision to take Zeynep away.

There was an

outrage that this was happening.

And there was such a sense of helplessness.

Anyway, it was about three minutes later.

There was a sudden, one single gunshot was fired.

And one guy actually, he went like this.

And I thought they killed Zainab.

It's like I was hit with a bat in the gut. I mean, it just floored me.

And obviously, my turn was coming next.

I don't think you're going to find a more fearful combination than what was

happening.

Sensory deprivation only magnifies the fear.

Totally, because you can't see what's coming, where the threat, where the blow

is going to come from.

And anticipating that, I mean, it was a hell of a scare.

I now didn't understand what was being said. I think my friend had just been

shot. I'm afraid I'm about to die any moment.

The panic that I could feel welling up inside me, it took every bit of my

training experience to force that thing down, because if it gets out, you're

useless.

And then I heard Zainab's voice.

So I suddenly realized, I mean, she had not been killed.

It was a massive amount of relief.

So there's this weird euphoria that, I mean, she's alive.

But at the same moment, I was experiencing this tremendous sense of

vulnerability because I was being stripped down. So it really was like a

of emotions.

He started asking me questions.

How can a Muslim girl come to Iraq with a Jewish spy?

I said, look, he's not Jewish and he's not spy.

He just told me that.

Look, Zeynep, just simply say to her there an apology to God that you made a

mistake and I give you a Muslim promise.

You're free. Just go now.

She had gained their trust.

As a Muslim woman, me, I was the enemy.

At that point, his life was in my hands.

And it's only me who can save him there.

Knowing what impact Abu Ghraib had on the Iraqi society, no

man wants to be stripped down at gunpoint by a hostile enemy.

And every male, I mean, they're going to be a liar if they don't tell you

they're not afraid in that situation of being raped or worse.

The next morning came very quickly. I was kicked awake.

There was a feeling of tension in there. I don't think you could get a more

tense situation.

I mean, you've got soldiers waiting. They know the Americans are about to

the town.

We weren't sure where we were. They took us into another compound.

And at that point, our blindfolds were removed.

Then the emir told us, OK, I'm going to Internet Center.

If you're really a journalist, then there's nothing to worry about.

Where I was going to be locked up was in this little hot

box room. It was a dusty old...

storage area, this solid door.

I took the time to spruce up and just regain that bit of composure.

If you display the stoic courage that they wouldn't themselves want to display

in a reverse situation, you're going to gain their respect.

Then I realized that they had left a rifle sitting in the room.

It's an FNC -1.

Of all the weapons in the world, this is the one I'm the most familiar with.

It bloated.

Having had military training, I can blow the bolt off, get out into the

courtyard, and basically shoot our would -be guards, get Zeynep,

and then as I'm racing forward in all this, I hit a brick wall.

What do I do beyond that?

We don't even know where we are.

We don't have a vehicle.

And we're in the middle of a city held by Mujahideen.

They made the decision very easy.

To hand it back and establish the trust.

As opposed to playing Rambo and probably getting us both killed.

It wasn't long after that that the Emir returned.

There was a big smile on his face and said that, ah, yes, you know what, I

your stories.

Okay, you're a journalist.

There's nothing to be afraid.

But the Americans are coming to Tel Aviv today.

So I cannot set you free.

It's all risky on the road.

So tomorrow, the first thing I'll do, take you out of Tel Aviv and release you

in Mosul.

I was very happy.

See you tomorrow.

What did he say?

He said that he picked the internet and he believed that we are journalists.

We are leaving tomorrow for Mosul.

But, in the meantime, we're being detained inside the middle of what's

become a battlefield.

I don't like the idea of being here tonight.

You couldn't get more on the front lines.

I did not want to be there when that attack took place.

I don't think they put me back in the hotbox because of any hostility. It was

simply they wanted to sleep themselves.

And the best way, the easiest way to do that was to lock me up again.

To go back into that room, it was like going into a sauna.

And all of a sudden, this is it. I mean, this is the opening curtain that's

going up.

Choppers were just coming like almost right over our compound and blasting

stuff.

These

guys,

Mujahideen, they thought they were hidden by the darkness, which means they

no idea about night vision capabilities of the American Air Force.

Every single move they made was suicidal.

You constantly hear the

screams of Allah Akbar, Allah Akbar.

I'm thinking these guys are trying to get their spirits up. I mean, they're

getting their hands kicked. I mean, they're getting pounded.

At that point, I mean, I began to realize we were in amongst them.

Pretty extreme guys.

And then one of them got up and let this guy in, and he was carrying an RPG.

From where I was, I could see, I mean, stacked from the floor to the ceiling,

was ammunition.

Rockets.

I realized then, I mean, oh my God.

Even one errant round, and we were gone. I mean, we were done.

Here we are once again on the precipice. I mean, it just doesn't get more

outrageous than that.

The fighter, he went back outside, and he got up on a rooftop and fired a

up. And before he could load the second one, the burst came right over our

compound.

And it was a field of heat from the tracer.

It vaporized him.

I was 100 % sure that I will be killed any time in that night.

And then suddenly, it's morning.

The silence is what you pick up on.

And since the time that I was kidnapped, I slept in a very peaceful way.

Then there's the what now.

No one knew what was going on.

So Zeynep, eventually she convinced the young boy.

She said, look, the battle's over.

Surely we're free to go.

So he leaves.

I've asked him to check to see if we can go. And he wasn't gone maybe more than

20 minutes. He came back.

There was a very strange expression on his face.

He just told me that Emir is a martyr now.

The emir had been killed by one of these rockets in the very beginning of the

attack. Our hearts just fell out.

This was the one guy who we were putting all our hopes on.

And now he's dead.

We understood what that meant.

Someone else is coming to get us.

They were taken over, but they did not know our identity.

And these guys were very angry. I mean, obviously, they'd been fighting the

night before.

They drove away mad.

You could sense that they knew now they were in danger as well.

It wasn't just the drones, because the helicopters had come the night before,

and now it's brought them home.

I'm waiting for the Americans to put a Hellfire missile into the vehicle.

Plus this whole thing of who is taking us now.

So there's that fear that whether it's by the Americans or by them, it's going

to be a short ride.

where we got out, I knew it was some kind of farm complex because we had

staggered down a bit of a field and you're flailing and you're being moved

around and completely helpless.

The blindfold has a big psychological effect.

You don't know where you're stepping.

You don't know where you're going.

You have no control.

It was something like a nightmare for me.

I was feeling the muzzle of the gun behind my neck.

And it's getting hotter and hotter.

And I was feeling that I was just walking to the hell itself.

And then we got into what turned out to be more or less like a bunker. It was

below ground.

Where are you from?

I'm from Canada.

American? No. They came in and asked some questions.

Same questions.

Who are you? Why are you here? Are you spies?

Et cetera, et cetera.

Now the Americans started to use the fast air. The jets were coming in.

You'd hear them basically straight overhead.

In the farm complex, had to be 30 or 40 fighting.

This is about as legitimate a target as you're going to find.

You're sitting, waiting for that, what should be and could be, you know,

light in the end of your life.

I was hearing some Arabic and some Turkish, so I missed some parts.

They were in a hurry.

They didn't know what to do with us.

Somebody said, we're running out of time.

Let's seem to kill them.

So I said, they're going to shoot us.

That was a heart -dropping moment.

I mean, for us.

Just keeping that panic down was something else.

I was so much terrified. I was believing that I only have minutes.

She began to cry.

Don't cry.

But he told me that, no, no, no, don't cry.

You're still the same person that I know.

So don't let them do this to you.

And he told me that physically they can touch us, but they cannot change our

souls. Nothing can change that.

It was another moment that I witnessed how mentally Scott was strong.

Then came the words, they were going to kill me, but not Zaynab. She said,

Scott, they're going to shoot you.

For me, if I was to be executed, I'm telling Zaynab, tell my son I didn't

If that's your last connection to your son, the last

example, I think that's important.

Courage is the one virtue without which all the rest are meaningless.

My father taught me that, and I've taught that to him.

I didn't want the blindfold because I got more afraid if I couldn't see. So

only did I get the blindfold, I also got a gag.

And then they put a sandbag on my head as well.

I'm about to be executed. There's no reason to doubt these people.

And I'm forcing down the panic.

And at that moment, one of their guys started to punch me.

I wasn't there.

My mind has gone somewhere else, outside of the here and now, back into the few

things it could hold on to, my family.

Suddenly,

he was told to stop.

Someone very close to me had said, I've just saved your life.

And then he went on to say that he had a brother in Toronto.

Of all the things that I thought he might do, that was not in the realm of

possible. That act of humanity, he saw me as a human being and did what he

could. I mean, it's just very strange.

And then he went on to say, don't say anything.

If my men hear you speak English.

they'll rip you apart.

I was really terrified that they were going to separate us and they were going

to kill him and set me free.

She was shouting my name and she wanted to be reassured that I was there.

Then I felt his hand touching my hand.

So I relaxed.

At least we were together.

That convoy got out of there. Given the aerial reconnaissance, I have no idea.

And after half an hour, it became hotter and hotter inside the car.

I could not breathe.

When they allowed me to take the blindfold off, that was the first time

was aware.

We were well into the desert. We were fleeing from the battle zone. It seemed

could relax slightly.

We stopped.

On mass, all of them.

pray towards Mecca, like a giant sort of church picnic outing.

One of the things that was never discussed was the possibility of ransom.

were fighting for religious beliefs.

We couldn't buy our way out, and we understood that.

There's a leader there.

Two other cars joined the group, and there was some discussion.

Our cars were full of munitions.

They took the munitions out and piled them into the other two.

And then, so basically turned them into wheeled torpedoes.

I mean, you hear about these things all the time, right? Suicide bomb cars, etc.

But to actually see them hastily putting them together, if we ever got out, that

was not only just a great story, but I mean, completely unseen by the West.

They were not afraid of dying at all.

That was the first time that I felt in my heart that they were from another

world, which is totally stranger to me.

And for me, there was no way to reach to that world.

We began talking with this guy on the front seat of the car, and he told me

Emir was his brother.

I know about his promise to free you.

So he told me that there is nothing to fear.

All of a sudden, there's a bit of a light.

Knowing that this individual, whose name is Mubasher, was aware of the promise,

I mean, it certainly gave us hope.

Somebody knew our identity.

We had the...

Somewhere close to the Syrian border, in the desert.

It was a house under construction, but pretty much off on its own.

And then Mubasher left.

We didn't know where he was going.

He obviously had to find what to do with us. I mean, he couldn't do it from the

house.

It wasn't long after that that another car drove out.

Four, four gunmen got out.

I was so much afraid. Again, I was with a group that I didn't know.

The leader of this group, when he saw me, I knew it was hatred in his eyes.

He saw me as an American and then translated that into the symbol of the

occupation.

He began to sort of shout directions and our guards from Telefon quickly took

their cue from him and separated Zeynep immediately.

I was sure that he had killed many people before.

He's taking a grave.

And he did it with a big happiness.

They took us at gunpoint out of the building.

And he showed us where there was a freshly dug grave when he told us at

I'm going to behead you.

I will use this blade.

I don't think there was a greater fear of anybody that was working as a

journalist in Iraq at that time.

That of being caught by the insurgency and beheaded.

I'm faced with something that goes beyond a bullet.

It's going to be excruciating pain.

This is someone who's going to slowly saw your neck in half.

It has been 100 % sure that we would be killed.

You're in the desert.

You can run nowhere.

And you have no hope.

I felt a tremendous sense of guilt because it was going to be a devastating

to my family.

And there'd be anger associated with the fact that I'd created this huge hole.

I did not want them to videotape it. I did not want that to be my son's final

image of his father, with someone pleading for his life and then still

killed.

I wanted to go to Mount Herm.

In most of the hardest times that we were not even allowed to talk to each

other,

you know, secretly, he was giving me some small smiles.

So that really...

Help me to be strong.

At that moment in time, there was no two people that could have been closer.

Our two worlds had been brought together and reduced down to this curved knife

and a beheading.

Get up.

We were told to get up.

We were taking our final walk to a gruesome death.

Time to die.

Then, As we started to go out, we saw headlights bobbing over the broken

The car drove up and Mubasher got out.

There was shouts, Mubasher obviously demanding to know what's going on.

And then he exerted authority over this individual and very quickly it became

apparent that the beheading was off.

It was a tremendous sense of disbelief.

And then you start to realize that we dodged literally that bullet.

That night, Mubasher himself sat with us.

Tomorrow we go to Mosul. He's just taking us to the new emir. So he's just

to confirm the decision of the previous emir.

And then, God willing, you are free.

It was by far the best night that we had. Good meal.

The euphoria of being brought back from the brink, the renewed faith in

Mubasher.

It actually surprised myself how each time hope came, just after whenever I

believed that it's the final thing.

But that upside down in your emotions was so tiring.

We got into Mosul.

Then whatever plan they had seemed to go awry.

The Emir doesn't want to see you.

The Emir was angry that we'd been brought to his domain.

It was obvious that Mubashir was quite, I mean, shook up.

We were taken to a succession of different houses.

Out of the car.

Finally, we were told to get out of the car.

And we were taken in through that house to a room in the back.

Mubasher came back, but he was looking like he was ashamed that he was

abandoning us.

I have to leave.

And he just said in Arabic, I leave your faith in God's merciful

hand.

That isn't the words you want to hear coming from the only guy that can

save you.

I understood that we were in the hands of another group and those guys

were really, really dangerous guys.

And even my captor was in danger.

So he just had to abandon us.

It's finished again.

We felt up at the last point that things had been pretty tough, that we'd been

through quite a bit.

We didn't realize that we were only at the beginning.

Listening to Scott was unbearable for me.

It's like a psychological torture.

They would beat the bonds on my feet. It was like a whip, like a reed, because

that's all your nerve endings are on your feet.

He began questioning me.

Who are you working for? Why did you go to Tal Afar?

And I would say, I am not. I'm a journalist.

Again, I believe this is how I'm going to die. They're going to beat me to

death.

In being beaten to death, the...

survival instinct isn't to survive.

It's to seek an end to the pain.

All I was doing is willing myself to go into the black to escape the pain.

I hate to say it, I wasn't thinking about my family.

It was about crossing over.

And the quicker the better.

I was brought to the other room.

And then I felt a burning sensation all around my body.

And I realized that actually they are beating me.

I could hear Zainab protesting.

And the same questioner came back.

And then he said to me, if you confess, we will stop the pain for Zainab.

Knowing that her torture was aimed at provoking a confession from me, I mean,

heart just sank.

But there was nothing I could do.

I really

don't know how much time later.

I noticed Scott's shoes, and I thought that they killed him

because I knew that he always used to keep the shoes in a neat way.

And it was a deep, deep pain.

It just proved that I couldn't save his life.

And some man came inside and told me, get up, we saved your life.

I didn't wake up. I was in another world.

They took me another house, and I realized that that house was owned by

my torturous mother.

He just told me that Scott was alive.

It was a massive relief.

I realized that.

Nothing is over unless it's over.

They came in and they said that Zaynab will be free.

But that I'm to die.

There was a tremendous weight off my shoulders when they said Zaynab was

released.

That at least one of us was going to survive.

On the flip side of that, I mean now, I'm facing this alone.

They chained my feet and had me splayed out, and they had another set of

handcuffs. I was now chained up like King Kong.

One of them, he said he knew I was a spy.

And we're going to behead you in the next 24 hours.

There was no fight left in me at this point.

I had an option, just simply returning back to Turkey.

But as soon as I learned that he was alive, I had to stay there because there

were things that I could do to save his life.

I went to Internet Center.

I print out his stories.

I talk with religious leaders. I talk to politicians.

I ask them to do whatever they can to reach

our captors and convince them that he's a journalist, not a spy.

He put the TV on and he flipped a few channels.

And every channel was showing the same images, images of 9 -11. And that's when

it hit me that it was now the anniversary of 9 -11. And I was in an al

terrorist house somewhere in Iraq. I mean, it was just overwhelming.

I mean, the idea that I might be set free was completely out of the question.

I realized that Kirk was going to grow up and I wasn't going to see that.

And that's where I admit one and only time that the tears flowed.

I caught myself because it's one of those things, if it starts, there's no

you're going to control it.

It was a small pillow and I did my best to make sure that when he came back, He

would have no evidence that I had been weak.

The leader came in and I was waiting for him to say we're beginning the

execution, etc. Instead he said we're going to play a game. The rules were he

was going to ask me questions.

Each answer I gave.

would determine if I lived until the next question.

And

then

suddenly he said, that's it, stop.

And then he said, you're going to be free to go.

In my mind, I believed they were taking me out.

someplace where the execution would be easier to clean up.

And they told me to get out, get out of the car.

He tucked the equivalent of six U .S. dollars into my pocket.

I could not bring myself to believe that I was actually, you know, as they said,

being set free.

You're thinking that at any minute this could be a quick and dirty execution.

Was it a random taxi or was it somebody, you know, that they had prearranged to

be there?

And then I smelt a familiar aroma, wafting from the driver.

And I realized that the smell was beer, and he was roaring drunk.

And that's when I knew that an Islamic extremist in the employ of al -Qaeda

wasn't going to be drunk on the job.

That smell of his burp was the smell of freedom to me.

At least I could begin to believe again. The light of hope came on again.

It wells up inside you.

As if something like the pilot light in your body, in your spirit, has been shut

down.

And suddenly it relights.

And for the first time, I could actually start to think, Oh my God,

what in the hell just transpired?

I was told that he would be freed and he would come where I was. And I was so

impatient.

I couldn't be sure till the time that I saw him.

That was the moment I was 100 % sure with all my heart that

no, there will be no trouble again.

We had just gone through a plane crash that lasted five days.

It wasn't a singular event.

It was a series of ongoing events that lasted for five days.

And she'd been, I mean, stellar in terms of saving my life numerous times.

If it wasn't for Zeynep, I'm fully convinced I'd be dead right now.

He always was giving me the strength to carry on.

So we were like a good team together, and we were like feeling the blank parts

of each other to survive.

You can't go through something like that and not create a bond, and I can't

foresee that bond, I mean, ever shifting.