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Subscribe to RSSPhotojournalist John Cantlie tells Krishnan Guru-Murthy of the UK's Channel 4 News about the terrifying week he was held captive in Syria by radical Islamist militants, some of them British.
LONDON -- A British photojournalist has described the terrifying week he was held captive by radical Islamist militants in Syria, where he and another photographer constantly feared for their lives at the hands of "disenchanted" young Britons.
Writing in The Sunday Times newspaper (site operates behind a pay wall), seasoned conflict photographer John Cantlie said he and Dutch photographer Jeroen Oerlemans were repeatedly told to prepare to die and at one point "we heard the worst noise we will hear in our lives: the sharpening of knives for a beheading."
It was not supposed to be that way.
The two men, along with their Syrian guide named in the article only as Mohamed, had entered the country on July 19 to cover the 17-month-old uprising in Syria, where fighters with the opposition Free Syrian Army have been battling to oust President Bashar Assad's regime and end his family's four-decade grip on power.
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But after accidentally stumbling into an encampment of foreign fighters, the men quickly found themselves part of a different kind of war with unexpected combatants.
"I ended up running for my life, barefoot and handcuffed, while British jihadists -- young men with south London accents -- shot to kill," Cantlie wrote of the pair's attempted escape early in their captivity.
"They were aiming their Kalashnikov at a British journalist, Londoner against Londoner in a rocky landscape that looked like the Scottish Highlands," he wrote.
The British Foreign Office has said it was investigating reports of Britons taking part in the fighting in Syria.
The U.K. government "takes very seriously any claims or reports that indicate there are British nationals amongst foreign fighters in Syria," a spokesperson told the British Broadcasting Corp.
Stringer / Reuters
After months of protests and violent crackdowns, a look back at the violence that has overtaken the country.
"We are monitoring the situation as closely as possible. Clearly, the deteriorating security situation in Syria leaves a dangerous space for foreign fighters. The solution lies in securing robust international action to resolve the crisis," the BBC quoted the spokesperson as saying.
Foreign journalists freed after harrowing week with extremists in Syria
Cantlie was on assignment for The Sunday Times and Oerlemans for Britain-based Panos Pictures.
'Biggest risk was from the British'
The two men were immediately seized by around 30 fighters when they entered the camp, which they had thought belonged to the Free Syrian Army. The journalists soon realized none of the fighters was Syrian.
Al-Qaida may be trying to infiltrate rebel groups battling Syrian government forces. NBC's chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel tells about the evidence of the terrorist group's presence.
The fighters were from various places, Cantlie wrote, including Britain, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Chechnya. At least several women were among them, he wrote.
The captors were mostly in their 20s and varied in temperament, Cantlie said, but the two captives feared the dozen or so Britons more than the others.
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"The biggest risk was from the British," Cantlie wrote.
The Britons did not seem to be experienced fighters, Cantlie wrote.
"They were thrilled to be in Syria. All their talk was of how to take out a tank, how to advance across open ground and how to clear a building. The camp was like an adventure course for disenchanted 20-year-olds," he wrote.
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Cantlie quoted one man who claimed to be a former supermarket worker in Britain as threatening: "You are spies. You work for (British domestic security agency) MI5, you work for (British foreign intelligence agency) MI6. Prepare for the afterlife. Are you ready to meet Allah?"
Machine guns operated by motorcycle brakes? Get a glimpse at the rebels fighting against Assad's forces in Syria's mountainous Jabal al-Zawiya area.
Freed by rebel Syrian fighters
Cantlie, Oerlemans and Mohamed attempted to escape on the second day of their captivity, but both journalists were shot and wounded before being recaptured. Mohamed managed to flee the camp and raised the alarm with members of the Free Syrian Army, who later liberated the journalists after eight days in captivity.
The captors were not part of the Free Syrian Army, Cantlie wrote. When rebel soldiers freed the journalists, they showed their anger at the young Islamic militants for taking foreign journalists captive.
"I'm so sorry about what's happened to you. We've been looking for you for three days. We were waiting for the right time to get you out," Cantlie quoted one of their rescuers as saying.
"We know about these foreigners. There are about 40 of them. We didn't know they would do something like this. ... This is not the way of the Syrian people. This is our revolution. We don't want these people coming in here in our name," the man said, according to Cantlie's account.
Full international news coverage from NBCNews.com
Cantlie and Oerlemans, who were blindfolded for most of their captivity, have both returned home and are recovering from their injuries.
There have been increasing reports about foreign fighters in Syria, but it remains unclear how many are in the country and for what they are fighting.
The locus point of the fighting in Syria has shifted in recent weeks to the commercial hub of Aleppo, where rebels have been battered by heavy weaponry unleashed by Assad's regime, as well as the capital Damascus. The conflict has claimed an estimated 18,000 lives across Syria.
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Misfits in their own country they have to go and be a pain in the ass in another country. *rolling eyes*
Are we witnessing the end of times? The Bible prophecies that Damascus will be judged and utterly destroyed in the last days. Isaiah 17: 1-3 and Jeremiah 49 23-27
Syria is imploding. Assad is slaughtering its own people, and steadily losing control of the country. The latest reports are that more than 20k Syrians have been murdered. Top Syrian officials are defecting. Iran is sending forces to fight on behalf of the Assad regime against the rebels and Putin is sending naval warships and Russian marines to Syria as a show of support for Assad.
But the rebels are no friends of freedom. Should they topple the Assad regime and seize control, we could see a repeat of the Egyptian revolution last year where Radical Islamic jihadists end up gaining control of the country.
A vacuum that's drawing thrill seeking Nutbags!
Just another sign that Great Britain has a real problem with its Muslim population. If the British government and people don't fix this problem, pretty soon we're going to see English jihadis with Kalashnikov rifles in Trafalgar Square. The media describes this as a "home grown" issue. I see it as an immigration issue. Nothing like importing your enemies and giving them great government benefits. The USA better take notice. We have enough problems with our own mentally ill nut jobs.
To fedupwithfed:
Confucius say: "He who farts in church sit in own pew!"
and he who speaks without knowledge will be known as Sum Dum Gye
The common theme here? Islam. let them have the Middle East and ship out all the ones in the US and Western Europe.
Another "journalist" entering a warzone, shocked that they got into trouble. Do journalists who insert themselves into warzones think they have some kind of invisible protective shield that will prevent harm from coming to them? If they flash their press pass, maybe the crazy guys with guns will just leave them alone? Maybe it wasn't the young fighters who were "disenchanted"...
Well that is a narrowminded comment.
They go in to places like that to find out what is going on. They know the risks and try to manage them but to them it's important for the news to get out to the rest of us.
You sound like the kind of person who can complain about anything.
In most warzones, wearing a press shirt is considered target identification.
Would you prefer just to sit back and take the government's word that the Kool-aid is fine? These risk takers ensure that we don't only get one side of a story. Then again maybe that's what you prefer. The clean sanitized version of things.
chris,
no, go ahead and go into the war zone and report it, please!
but dont come crying when you meet bad people or see bad things!
the REPORTERS, put them self in harms way and the reporter is surprised?
HOW DARE THE REBELS TAKE A REPORTER CAPTIVE!!
these reporters think everywhere is america and everywhere has freedom of press.
LAST I CHECKED SYRIA AINT AMERICA!!!
the problem is they chose to put others in harms way.
OMG is right on, this aint the U.S.of A we are talking about. Because we all believe in the sanctity of the press does not mean squat to quite a bit of the rest of the world.
if they had not been spirited away by others they would have expected some brave soul in uniform to risk all to rescue them.
Altruism is great in theory but in practice it is a rare commodity.
I am so glad that we didn't jump into another conflict which may cost American lives and $$. If some Syrians want to kill other Syrians, innocent or not, including women and children, its PERFECTLY fine with me. I still felt we did the right thing by not intervene during Rwandan genocide.
OMG & Freedom: Who did they put in harms way? These foreign fighters are obviously allied with the freedom Fighters, as there was no battle to rescue them but only a tongue lashing from the Freedom Fighters for giving them a bad name! Neither of you understood the story obviously. First of all Freedom, why do you even mention the US, these are Brits so your comparison is moot. NO where in the article does it have the reporters crying about what they were going on, they knew they were in a dangerous situation and tried to get them selves out, they also did their jobs and reported it; kudos to them, they did what they are paid to do.
what a miserably written article. If one of my middle school students had turned this in, they'd have failed the assignment and been asked to rewrite it. Missing words, misspellings, and a rambling narrative that is very light on facts and details and is confusing to the reader. Daniel, it's worth a few minutes to think about what you're writing, and your editor should be fired.
To Summarize:
1. A Brit journalist and his Dutch photographer were held hostage in Syria by radical foreign fighers
2. Among these foreign fighters were Islamists from GB, being the most irrational and feared of the abductors.
3. The Free Syrian Army forces, informed of the situation by escaped hostage and interpretor Mohamed , freed the journalist and the photographer.
4. The Free Syrian Army forces are aware of, and want no association with, the influx of foreign radical jihadists.
Hope this helps.
The Queen called, she wants her English back. :)
Stumps these are the times we live in; it's not about quality writing, but rather about who is first to print with a story. I doubt an editor was even involved, that would just slow the whole process down.
What is a "locus" point? Hhhhhmmmm ....
I can understand a typo here and there, but f is a left-handed stroke and l is a right-handed stroke. Not to mention I can't believe that a competent writer wouldn't at least proofread their own articles.
Personally, I think the Free Syrian Army is missing a golden opportunity here.
Untrained foreign fighters that are anxious to advance over open ground, and take on a tank. Transport them to the front lines, let's see how all their planning works out for them.......after all, front line shock troops are hard to recruit.
I have nothing but good thoughts for them if they went to Syria to die for Allah, may these adventurous 20 yr olds be granted their wish.
CPO, I'd seen your postings on other topics in the past. Appreciate your rationale. Thanks!
I guess this proves 100% without the shadow of ANY doubt that what Assad is saying is TRUE: he's fighting a war against outside terrorists coming into Syria to disrupt and create terror in his country; too bad to find out that these terrorists are actually British and from other countries in the west. America, England and France, the lands of hypocrisy: You preach freedom but create terror; you preach equality but used slaves for hundreds of years; you preach peace but bomb other countries.
What other western countries where mentioned that these terrorists were coming from beside Britain? Last time i checked Chechnya, Bangladesh and Pakistan are all ME and Asian. I do admire your holier than thou tone though.
Ben64D- Are you illiterate? If you read my words carefully you will see I said "...what Assad is saying...", not what the article is saying. Thank you, come again.
Is that: 1/1000th of a percent American? Can't figure out your moniker, let alone your rationale.
one1000percentAmerican
Ben64D- Are you illiterate? If you read my words carefully you will see I said "...what Assad is saying...", not what the article is saying. Thank you, come again.
............Sorry, but you are wrong. Yes, you did post: what Assad is saying is TRUE: he's fighting a war against outside terrorists coming into Syria to disrupt and create terror in his country;
............but then you posted: too bad to find out that these terrorists are actually British and from other countries in the west. America, England and France,
......"too bad to find out"? Find out where? Certainly not in this article. So in fact Ben64D is not illiterate and his criticism of your first post was right on. Proof read what you write before calling other people illiterate.
English as a 2nd and only language. ;)
It should be noted that just last week, the United States government "let it leak" in that the President of the United States signed a secret order to give aide to the Syria rebels. The news article stated that the government was not giving weapons to them, but did not say that the aide could not be in the form of imbeded agents in a "consultent" form.
The captors sound like some sort of mercenary group, which are more common now in middle eastern conflicts.
I've got some news for this guy. Those people aren't Britons. They're 3rd world rabble that the Kremlin created Labour party let into Britain by the 100s of thousands as a means of destroying the UK from within. Britons are the peoples of NW European heritage that settled the islands many many centuries ago.
@lee, you mean they are the Anglo-Saxons that invaded and ruled ruthlessly ruled over the English and Irish. They are now promenent English Population than are forcefully ruling Ireland to this day. I am an American decended from these Irish immigrants that became Coal Miners here more than a Century ago. I have no love for Anglo-Saxons and that includes Romney and his predicessors.
Lee, you'd failed to include the Southern European Romans, along with their mix of ethnicities throughout their empire. Thus, one can conclude that GB is, historically, comprised of peoples from Europe, Western Asia, South Asia, Middle East, and North Africa.
I wonder, are you British, or have you simply run out of insults for the Democrats, Progressives, and Liberals, and moved your rightwing hatred "over the pond"?
Im just going to say........... '6dogs' & the pic says it all.
Interesting, when I read the term "Britons" in the article, I assumed it meant nationality and not ethnic origins, but apparently others cannot make the distinction.
@6dogs you have your ethnic knowledge all wrong. The Angles, Saxons, and Jutes invaded and displaced the Britons who were a Celtic people themselves. The most fitting claimants to being a "Briton" in the ethnic sense are the Welsh as the ASJ invasion pushed the Britons west in what is now Wales. The ASJs were themselves eventually subjugated by the Normans.
Oh and by the way Ireland has been independent since 1921. If you're going to spout off nationalist garbage at least be reasonably accurate. You obviously have absolutely no knowledge of the history of the British Isles so you should read up before you speak.
This argument is going no where. All Europeans have been the conquers or the conquered over history. Nearly everyone in that part of the world would have an ancestor from another part of Europe. Your 60th great grandfather probably raped women all over Europe while he was in the roman army or part of the crusades. There is almost no such thing as a pure blooded French, English, German or any other for that.
Doesn't ring true to me. Sounds like BS. Whole big country of Syria, and they just happen to get captured by ex-pat British jihadists? Show me the proof, sounds like a story concocted to sell papers in the UK.
not to sell papers, to justify surveillance on muslims in the UK... helping advance the bankster-owned police state.
Curious, if these guys work for Murdoch, you may have a point.
this story smells funny... The British have been funding the "free Syrian Army" (also known as the CIA-created Al Qaeda). I think this story is manufactured... It reads like it was thrown-together quickly and the author hadn't yet made up enough details yet.
The mainstream propaganda networks are really stretching now.
You betcha. Bunch of crap. They be smoking something funny. Made up a bunch of crap and sold it to "Main Stream Media". Londoner aganst Londoner? BARF.
Well, Britain and Europe, how is that multiculturalism working for you now? Not so good? Well, who'd have thought that if you take in a bunch of poisonous snakes that they might grow up to bite you? And it's happening already in England, so what do you expect if they go back to their "home" lands, they are going to get more civilized?
When I read the title of this article I thought there was a mistake when it said 'British militants in Syria', that didn't sound right. What a mess, a British Journalist going to the danger zone in Syria and get hostage by his own countrymen ??
So much for western nations burying their heads in the sand... This is what they do, and their reason for being in western countries in the first place. Past riots in France, Germany and England are big indicators they will not assimilate, and the Trojan Horse just keeps getting bigger !! When are the western countries going to come to their senses..??????
that photo where a Syrian fighter is holding his beautiful little girl sitting over the motorcycle is priceless. Hope they make it OK out of that war.
How do you know it's not a picture of two gay Italian guys holding their adopted kid, near of an army post outside of Rome?
Just being a smart@zz. Hope you're right.
That Honda enduro street trail motorcycle in the last photo is kick azz
I am neither for nor against the rebels in Syria. It is good to hear that they don't want foreigners coming into their country and participating in their revolution. I hope this attitude applies to the numerous terrorist organizations with roots in the Mid East. I also hope it applies to foreign governments who would wish to insert their influence into the mix. It is for the Syrian people to decide and they will have to live and/or die with the result.
Britain's immigration policies are sheer insanity.
You think ours are any better? Our State Department allowed ALL of the hijackers into "our" country with visas. 6 months AFTER 9/11 the overstayed visas were approved by the State Dept. The terrorists of 9/11 came with visas and had them extended even after their deaths. We blame the nut jobs that got us on 9/11 but nobody is putting the blame on the State Dept. for not properly doing background checks and issuing visas to those hijackers. They weren't tracked either. They applied to flight schools and didn't attend classes that their educational visas were for and no flags were thrown up. Before we start blaming others, we have to take some of our own blame as well as our government's failures to protect us.
And it seems the rebels captured over 40 Iranian fighters this past weekend,fighting for the Assad regime.
What, you don't believe the 48 Iranians were on a religious pilgrimage like it was reported?
Oh yeah, 48 men between the ages of 20 to 40 with military backgrounds who happen to be on a pilgrimage through a country in a civil war. sure... lol
Something "fishy" with this story. Let's see where it goes. I'm not buying into this rhetoric or sensationalism. The truth will come out if it's real or not.
These guys are about as British as I am Chinese. How's all that diversity working out for you, GB?
these animals' parents immigrated from Pakistan/Bangladesh to England. now they teach intolerance at home and trying to export this islamist garbage to Syria, hoping the new gov't will be Islamic
Just shoot them. Who cares where they are from. Islamic extremists went the way of the human before clothing. What a stupid society and religion. Talk about a waste of space, resources. Put a goddamn condom on. Somebody tell those poeple to stop having so many kids!! This world is @!$%# and gets worse every decade.
The usual problems in the Middle East, having to have a score card to keep track of who's who in the fights,let alone know how many foreign fingers are in the pie!
LONDON -- A British photojournalist has described the terrifying week he was held captive by radical Islamist militants in Syria, where he and another photographer constantly feared for their lives at the hands of "disenchanted" young Britons.
This makes no sense, was he captured by islamist militants or british soldiers? I am not aware that britain has deployed soldiers there, and if they did why are they capturing their own journalists?
All so called reporters who go into a war zone should be considered targets.They cause more problems than anything else,then when they get into trouble they cry that their government won't help them.No I do not believe that any government always tells the truth,But reporters tell the truth that their editors require them to tell.Reporters IMO are trash that should be shot just like any one else traveling with the enemy.
So you would prefer governments, and dictators be free to murder innocent people in complete secrecy huh?
I'm finding this story a little hard to swallow,,,,too many holes that need filling,,,it's not cohesive at all,,,,but as was posted earlier,,,,I'll hang my hat up for a while on this one,,,,and the truth does usually come out,albiet in bits at a time.....Too many unbased and biased stories flying around,if only to add confusion and lies into the mix,,,ZZAR
ZZAR....... even though yer name is RAZZ, dyslexia huh?
Most troubling is that they tried to escape, were shot, and lived without medical attention for another week before they were rescued? Am I to believe they got shot in their extremities?