NBC News producer Ghazi Balkiz and several colleagues were kidnapped and held for five days in Syria in December before escaping unharmed. Here is Balkiz's account of his time in captivity.

I heard him enter the room as I lay on the damp mattress on the floor in a cold room. Abu Jaffar paused and cocked his pistol. Then he knelt down and pushed the barrel hard against my head. The metal felt cold against my skin.

Abu Jaffar, whose face I have never seen because he was always wearing a black ski mask when we were not blindfolded, saw that the piece of cloth they used to bind my hands had come loose and thought I was trying to escape.

Now I've had guns put to my head before: once in Iraq in 2003 and another by Abu Jaffar himself just three days earlier. While I did not believe I was going to be shot those other two times, this time I did.

John Brecher / NBC News

Ghazi Balkiz, a London-based producer for NBC News who was held captive for five days in Syria, is seen here on assignment in Rome this week.

It was as if time slowed down and some sort of survival instinct kicked in; there was fear, a lot of it, but this was not the time to deal with it. I told myself that I had to be very careful about what I was going to say in the few seconds to come. This really was a matter of life and death.

I called out to my friend and colleague Ammar, who was kidnapped with us and who was acting as our translator, and through him I urged Abu Jaffar to listen to me before shooting. I explained that the cloth might have come loose because I was scratching my arms because I have psoriasis. I asked permission to sit up and show him, and then rolled up my sleeves and showed him the scars.

He took a look, inquired more about my skin condition and then said "I am sorry" in English and patted my head, which I thought was very condescending. He asked me if a shower would make me feel better.

That's how I ended up taking a shower a day before the rest of the guys kidnapped with me. I joke about this now, saying that this is probably the only time in my life psoriasis led to something good: a shower.

After the shower, I was given new clothes, including a really ugly beige cardigan that I ended up wearing on live television as soon as we crossed the border into Turkey after escaping. I have since received so many comments about this sweater – none of them complimentary.

Our kidnappers asked me to sit down and talk to them, so I -- feeling fresh and clean after the shower -- talked with Abu Jaffar and another kidnapper named Zain. It was the first time I had had a conversation with two of our kidnappers. Once again my colleague and friend Ammar was our translator.

Over a pot of sweet tea and cigarettes, we talked about poetry. Abu Jaffar told us that he writes poetry. We also talked about what kind of music we each preferred; I told them I liked the Lebanese singer Fairouz.

"Like the morning coffee, it enters every house," Abu Jaffar said of her music.

This all sounds like some sort of a friends' gathering, hanging out and talking about life, only in this case, Ammar and I were sitting on the floor, still blindfolded and our hands tied.

This was on the fourth night of our kidnapping in Syria and in the second hide-out we were taken to by our kidnappers -- members of the feared and brutal "shabiha" pro-government militia.

During our conversation, Abu Jaffar talked about how beautiful his country was. He described sitting against a tree on a hill watching the sunset. He talked about the fresh and delicious produce from the farms around his village.

He said he never wanted to leave his country, and how if we had met in different circumstances, I would have seen how beautiful Syria really is. He said if there was no war, we might have even met.

We talked about our families. Abu Jaffar and Zain did not say much about theirs, but I told them about mine, about my parents and how worried they must be by now. I told them about my wife and how much she means to me, about my older brother and how honorable he is. I also told him about my late younger brother, the circumstances of his death and how it had devastated my parents.

I hoped my parents would never have to go through the death of another son again, I told Abu Jaffar.

Slideshow: The lives of Syrian rebels

NBC News

People resisting the army of President Bashar al-Assad in northern Syria cope with loss and prepare for fighting.

Launch slideshow

By telling them all this, I was trying to make our kidnappers see us as human beings who have people who love them, who have experienced happiness and grief. I thought this might make it harder for them to execute us.

That prompted Abu Jaffar to talk about destiny and fate. So I told them about Paulo Coelho's "The Alchemist" -- at least what I got out of it -- and about how Coelho wrote that understanding "Maktoob" is worth more than gold.

Muslims believe that everything that happens in this world has already been determined by God. "Maktoob" in Arabic means "Everything is written." My kidnappers said that everything they were going through, this war and all, has already been written.

We continued to talk. Unfortunately, I can't remember everything we talked about. Abu Jaffar and Zain also asked Ammar all kinds of questions. We were interrupted when another one of our kidnappers whose name I never got came back to the house. He was not happy that Ammar and I were in the living room.

Then there was the silence. I cannot really say that it was an awkward moment of silence; after all, the whole situation was awkward.

As we sat there in that silence, Abu Jaffar, Zain and another kidnapper whose name I never knew went and sat further away. They talked among themselves, asking each other questions like "How did it come to this? What happened to us that drove us to kidnap people and hold them against their will?" One of them referring to us asked rhetorically, "Don't they have families that are worried about them?"

Our kidnappers, it seems, had a human side after all.

Throughout our captivity, I did my best to hide my feelings of fear and helplessness from our captors. I kept telling myself that I needed to focus on when we get out and not if. I told myself to stay positive.

The mornings were the worst. Waking up cold in a cold room, body stiff. For the first few seconds I would be disoriented and ask myself, "Where am I?" Then the realization of where I was would sink in, and I'd sigh.

Slideshow: Behind Syrian rebel lines

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.

Launch slideshow

Time passed and events happened and during our last car ride with our kidnappers, we were rescued by a rebel group. Abu Jaffar and another one of captors in our vehicle were killed in the firefight that led to our freedom.

I am still alive and doing relatively well. I am reunited with my family and friends. But those five days of my life are going to live with me and my family forever.

When we as journalists go into the field, we know the risks we are taking. But I guess we, or at least I, always thought, "It is not going to happen to us." But this time, it did happen to us. This does not stem from an unrealistic approach to things, events and life, because trust me: What I see in the field is very real. We cover war and conflict zones and in those situations, bad things happen and people die. The way I go about it is to plan for the worst but hope for the best.

Now Abu Jaffar is dead. During our captivity, he put his gun to my head twice, and on our first day he ordered the execution of one of the rebels who were with us; the execution was carried out within seconds. He also was "a first-rate killer" as he once described himself to us.

At the end of the day, I remember what my mother went through when my younger brother passed away, and I cannot help but think that even though Abu Jaffar was not a good man, he also had a mother and I am sure that she is in pain just like every mother who loses a son would be.

Slideshow: Syria uprising

/

A look back at the conflict that has overtaken the country.

Launch slideshow

Related:

From December 2012: A window into war-torn Aleppo

From July 2012: Who are the Syrian rebels?

Full Syria coverage from NBC News

Adama Diarra / Reuters file

Militiaman from the Ansar Dine Islamic group, who said they come from Niger and Mauritania, ride on a vehicle at Kidal in northeastern Mali in this June 16 file photograph.

TIMBUKTU, Mali -- A military helicopter arced through the dusty yellow haze and dropped onto the sand a few kilometers from Timbuktu on April 24, settling inside a ring of Islamists armed with AK-47s and anti-aircraft guns.

A general from neighboring Burkina Faso and a Swiss government aid worker emerged and joined an Islamist leader sheltering in a tent; they exchanged pleasantries over roasted goat and cans of fruit juice. About an hour later, after the Swiss official and Islamist leader had spent five minutes alone in the helicopter, a pickup truck arrived carrying Beatrice Stockly, a Swiss missionary who had been kidnapped nine days earlier.

"I don't know what they talked about, but soon after the Islamist left the helicopter, the hostage arrived," said a witness who was on the helicopter that whisked Stockly, who arrived wearing a veil, to freedom.

"The first thing that she did was remove the veil and eat a bar of Swiss chocolate."

Such exchanges -- usually secret -- lie at the heart of a multimillion dollar kidnap and ransom industry in West Africa's dry north. Governments, including the Swiss, deny paying ransoms, but deals are done, according to U.S. officials and Swiss government reports. Alongside networks smuggling everything from cigarettes to guns, people and drugs, they form a lucrative criminal economy that has helped drive this year's implosion in Mali, a state that has lost control of an area in its north bigger than France.

Flush with cash, al-Qaida-linked gunmen -- dubbed "gangster-jihadists" by French parliamentarians -- are now key players in a web of Islamists and criminal networks recruiting hundreds of locals, including children, and a trickle of foreign fighters. Among the shifting alliances, al-Qaida's North Africa wing, known as AQIM, has forged links with Malian Tuareg Islamists, and MUJWA, a group that splintered off from AQIM but still operates loosely with it. 

Islamic rule
The Islamists, who advocate a political ideology based on Islam, are trying to impose a strict form of Shariah law. At least three suspected criminals have been stoned to death or executed by firing squad in Mali while several others have had hands and feet amputated.

Almahamoud, a man from Ansongo who was accused -- wrongly, he says -- of stealing cattle, suffered an amputation in August. "They cut off my hand to make an example of me," he said. "They will continue mutilating people to impose their authority. I don't know how I will live with just one hand."

Traditional, moderate Islamic customs have been crushed. Music is banned, women cover themselves with veils and residents are flogged for smoking cigarettes or drinking alcohol. Ancient religious shrines central to the Sufi Islam practiced by many Malians have been smashed because they are deemed illegal by the hardliners.

The Islamists say they have been helped by the criminal economy -- including payments from the West.

"It is the Western countries that are financing terrorism and jihad through their ransom payments," said Oumar Ould Hamaha, who said he spoke on behalf of MUJWA. Referring to the various Islamist groups, he added: "We are separate but we all have the same aim, to fight for Islam."

For the region and the West, the challenge is to wrest back control of a vast desert area that, for now, is a safe haven for extremists and criminals. The stakes are high. With large airplane runways in Gao, Timbuktu, Kidal and Tessalit under Islamist control, Mali's north threatens to become a free-for-all for traffickers and terrorists.

"Their common interest is the lack of a state," said a former senior Malian intelligence official when asked to explain the relationships between AQIM, which has moved from peripheral to powerful force in the region, and other Islamist groups and criminal networks. "Fundamentally that is what links these people."

Ransom millions
The Sahara's modern-day ransom industry has its roots in February 2003, when a group of 32 European tourists were snatched in Algeria by the Salafist Group of Preaching and Combat, known as the GSPC. Some of the hostages were rescued by Algerian security forces, but the rest were freed after $5 million was paid by at least one European government, according to Stephen Ellis, an expert on organized crime and professor at the African Studies Centre in Leiden, the Netherlands, who has followed the Islamist group over the past decade.

"It set a precedent," said Ellis. The GSPC later declared allegiance to al-Qaida, changed its name to AQIM and turned its southern wing into a money-making operation. "They were back in business with that first round of payments," Ellis said.

In the years that followed, more than 20 other Westerners were kidnapped across the Sahel-Sahara band. Leaked cables from 2008 and 2009 from the U.S. Embassy in Mali's capital, Bamako, record sources telling diplomats that AQIM had offered to pay as much as $100,000 for captured Westerners, so long as they were not American, in the hope of extracting even higher ransoms. The gangster-jihadists knew Washington did not pay ransoms -- but that other countries did.

Western and regional security officials say kidnapping subsequently earned AQIM tens of millions of dollars, although no figures have ever been confirmed. Switzerland has come closest to indicating the sums involved, though still officially denying it has paid any ransoms.

A Swiss government report in 2010 confirmed the country had spent 5.5 million Swiss francs ($5.9 million) the previous year to free two hostages held in Mali. A separate parliamentary statement revealed that about 2 million francs went on paying Swiss staff involved in the operation. A spokesman for the department of external affairs declined to say where the rest of the money had gone.
"There is no hostage that has been released without a ransom. You have to be realistic," a senior West African official who has direct knowledge of hostage negotiations told Reuters. "The West has financed AQIM by paying ransoms for hostages."

The money has allowed the group to buy food, fuel, weapons and favor among local populations in remote zones of Mali's north. Fees have risen, too -- AQIM is currently demanding 90 million euros ($117 million) for the release of four French workers seized from a uranium mine in Niger in late 2010.

In Mali's north, residents have little doubt they are seeing the results of ransom payments. In August, rank-and-file members of MUJWA in the town of Gao were given large wads of cash soon after an Italian and two Spanish hostages were freed, according to two residents, both of whom had friends or contacts within the organization. One resident said the minimum payment was about $300.

Joe Penney / Reuters file

Children studying the Koran are seen at Al Firdauss Islamic school in the Malian capital of Bamako on Sept. 22.

Djibril Yalga, who repairs mobile and satellite telephones on a dusty street corner in Gao, said business was booming under Islamist rule and fighters with cash were ready to spend it to keep locals happy.

"Lots of people -- mostly gunmen -- come to charge their phones," he said, as Islamists perched nearby on pick-up trucks mounted with machineguns. "They pay well and seldom try and bargain. They let me keep the change."

Following the money
When a coup in March removed President Amadou Toumani Toure, it revealed a deep rot in a country once seen as a model of democracy for the region. Bamako had tried to run Mali's north through alliances with a local elite involved in criminality -- rather than by tackling long-standing issues -- and that accelerated the collapse as a power vacuum persisted.

AQIM's Sahara wing, led by two Algerians, Mokhtar Belmokhtar and Abou Zeid, has extended its influence partly through loose alliances. Its partners include Ansar Dine, a group of Tuareg-led rebels seeking to impose Shariah, and the Arab-dominated MUJWA, say both local and Western officials.

Money from criminal enterprises has enabled the Islamists to outgun rival rebel groups. "(The Islamists) can afford to pay people but we cannot," said Mohamed Attaher, a senior official with MNLA, a rebel group that kicked off an uprising in January but in June was pushed out of areas it had controlled by MUJWA.

The United Nations has evidence that Islamists enlisting children in Mali's north are paying their families a one-off fee of about $600 for each new young fighter, plus monthly payments of about $400, according to Ivan Simonovic, the U.N.'s assistant secretary-general for Human Rights.

Reuters journalists travelling in Islamist-held zones saw a handful of children in the ranks of the armed groups, some working as drivers while others, clad in khaki boubous (flowing robes) and black headbands, showed off how quickly they could take apart and reassemble their AK-47s. U.S.-based Human Rights Watch estimates hundreds of children, some as young as 12, have been recruited into the Islamists' ranks.

"There are young fighters -- our doors are open to everyone," said Ould Hamaha, the MUJWA spokesman. "If they are very young we will be able to train them. It is not a problem."

The drug connection
As well as ransoms, drug money is funding the rebels and terrorists. The Sahara has become a transit point not just for hashish but also for some of the Latin American cocaine and Afghan heroin destined for Europe. For those who know the desert, such as Mohamed, a young Arab-Tuareg from Timbuktu, the trade has been a bonanza.

Having ferried subsidized fuel from Algeria to sell at a profit in Mali's north, he was approached to switch to a more lucrative alternative: becoming a driver on cocaine runs.

Mohamed said loads of cocaine would be dropped in the desert and he would collect $3,000 per trip to ferry drugs to a given location. After several successful deliveries, he sometimes even got to keep the car.

Joe Penney / Reuters file

Cocaine seized by Guinea-Bissau's judicial police in the capital Bissau on March 21 is displayed for journalists.

"With this money I was able to organize three wedding ceremonies -- how could I have done this with the other job?" he said, speaking to Reuters in Timbuktu. "As for the security -- if you smuggle fuel and are arrested you face a fine and lose your product. With drugs, as we say in the trade, ‘Someone else takes care of that.'"

Mohamed, who had shifted between smugglers and rebel groups, was referring to the common suspicions of complicity between some traffickers and civilian and military authorities in the north.

Similar accounts were repeated by others in the north, where new buildings, expensive cars and other ostentation hint at the money being made from drugs. In Gao, the biggest town in Mali's north, multistory Mediterranean-style villas surrounded by high, whitewashed walls and ornate gates have popped up amid the grinding poverty.

Ben Essayouti, secretary general of Timbuktu's branch of the Malian Human Rights League and a teacher, said: "People came in from the desert with suitcases full of cash. Sometimes the bank opened on holidays just for them."

Links between drug smugglers and Islamists, and the way in which funds are generated for AQIM, are more nuanced than in the ransom business. Hilary Renner, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of State, said of AQIM's role in the drugs trade: "They do not control the means of production but they do provide 'protection' and permissions for traffickers moving product through areas they control."

Traffickers arrested in Mauritania last year told authorities there that a convoy of hashish would have to pay $50,000 to pass through AQIM-controlled territory, according to a Western law enforcement official in the region.

But few people in Gao or Timbuktu now differentiate between criminals and jihadists. Essayouti said he had witnessed how the two cooperate. "When AQIM came into Timbuktu, we saw that they were together. The drug traffickers and AQIM look after each other."
Bamako-based diplomats and local residents in Gao say ties between traffickers and Islamists are even stronger in that town; they cited names of businessmen and local politicians allegedly connected to the drugs trade and now seen as cooperating with MUJWA. Ould Hamaha, who said he spoke for MUJWA, said the group had no links with drug traffickers.

The West’s dilemma
Reflecting frustrations with the ransoms that help finance terrorist groups, David Cohen, U.S. undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, toured Europe in October to try and forge a common position on dealing with kidnappings. For many observers, however, the damage has already been done.

Regional and Western nations scrambling to resolve Mali's crisis are caught between mounting a hurried, and potentially ill-prepared, military operation, and the danger of giving the Islamists and their allies time to dig in.

As diplomats prepare a U.N. resolution to back military intervention, there is also talk of negotiations. The task is complicated by the array of allied players - Islamists, traffickers and some opportunistic youth - who, for now, see no advantage in bowing to Mali government control.

"It makes it more difficult as it is not clear how you have to approach them," said Pierre Lapaque, head of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime for West Africa.

To persuade groups to distance themselves from terrorism and organized crime, unsavory bargains may have to be made.
"In the short term, if the Malian government wants to win back the north, it will have to strike deals with some of these groups," said Wolfram Lacher, a researcher at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. "The difficult question is how you stop ... their positions being strengthened."

More from Open Channel:

 

• Feds investigate phony letters telling Fla. voters they're not eligible to vote
• 'Cash register justice'; private probation services face legal counterattack
• Sunni radicals target Shiites to fan sectarian flames in Pakistan
• Unstoppable hackers take out bank websites with next-gen 'botnets'
• Ex-CIA agent pleads guilty to leaking identity of covert operative
• 'Hurricane tort king' wires another $1 million to pro-Obama Super PAC
• Tracking secretive opponent of Montana campaign finance laws
• To fight obesity, WHO agency partners with soft drink, snack makers
• Child sex abuse survivor on release of Boy Scout files: This 'empowers us'
• US nonprofit 'names and shames' businesses to put bite into Iran sanctions

 

Follow Open Channel from NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook

CAIRO -- Two American tourists abducted in Egypt's Sinai region while on a church bus tour of the Middle East were released on Monday after three days in captivity, officials told NBC News.

Pastor Rev. Michel Louis, 61 and another woman, 39 – both from Boston – were kidnapped on Friday by a Bedouin tribesman who was angry at the jailing of his uncle on drug charges.

It was not immediately clear if their Egyptian tour guide, who was also taken hostage, had been released.

Egyptian authorities had sought help from local tribal leaders to mediate with the tribesman.

The abduction took place along the road linking Cairo to the sixth-century St. Catherine's Monastery, located at the foot of Mount Sinai where the Old Testament says Moses received the stone tablets with the Ten Commandments.

The route is a frequent target by Bedouins who abduct tourists to pressure police to meet their demands, which is usually to release a detained relative they say has been unjustly arrested.

More world stories from NBC News:

• Red Cross: Syria is now in civil war, humanitarian law applies
• Egypt seeks release of Mass. pastor abducted by Bedouin
• Soft landing for 'human dominoes' in China
• Clinton holds first meeting with Egypt's Morsi amid political standoff
• Afghan minister survives assassination attempt
• UN team investigates massacre in Syria village
• Surfer presumed dead in Australia shark attack
• The ghosts that haunt China's economic landscape

Follow World News on msnbc.com on Twitter 

A U.S. citizen kidnapped in Benin was lured to the West African country by criminals the American met online, sources told Reuters new agency Wednesday.

A kidnapping notice was first posted Tuesday on the U.S. Embassy in Cotonou’s website, but officials did not identify the victim.

Embassy officials have "no reason to believe that other U.S. citizens or interests are at risk," said the post. "The investigation is ongoing, and there are no further details at this time."

A security source told Reuters the kidnap victim was a man who had traveled to the country last week to meet a group of people from Benin and neighboring Nigeria, Reuters reported. He was abducted and then forced to contact his family to ask for a ransom payment, the source in Benin said.

There were no apparent links to Islamist groups or pirates operating in the region, the source said.

Bing maps

Francine Ochabi, the press attachè for Benin's president, told The Associated Press she was not aware of the kidnapping and that the government had no comment.

An embassy spokeswoman declined to provide any further information.

Kidnappings of foreigners are rare in Benin, a French-speaking country of about 9 million people, but there have been several abductions in Nigeria this year.

A number of foreigners have been kidnapped in West Africa over the past two years after making contacts on the Internet.

More world news from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• Former top aide to British PM David Cameron charged in perjury case
• Was Flame virus written by cyberwarriors or gamers?
• Report: Iran using passenger jets to smuggle weapons to Syria, Lebanon
• Nelson Mandela makes rare appearance in home village
• Stray dog follows bikers over 1,100 miles to Tibet    
• Greek tragedy: Economic crisis sparks brain drain

Follow us on Twitter: @msnbc_world

Updated at 1:03 p.m. ET: CAIRO -- NBC's Charlene Gubash reports the three former hostages, including two American women, were released to military officials and not police because police are mistrusted by the Egyptian Bedouin tribesmen.

The Governor of South Sinai has also invited the Americans for dinner, Gubash reports. Their itinerary includes Sharm, Cairo to visit pyramids and Alexandria.

Updated at 10:37 a.m. ET:  CAIRO -- South Sinai Police Chief Maj. Gen. Mohammed Naguib tells The Associated Press that he has sent a car to pick up the kidnapping Americans after the deal was made following negotiations with Egyptian Bedouin tribesmen.

The two American women and one guide were seized Friday from a minivan that was returning them from the monastery to the Red Sea resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh.  Naguib said earlier the kidnappers wanted the release of fellow tribesmen who were arrested but he isn't releasing details about the negotiations.

NBC's Charlene Gubash says the tourists were on a tour with Seed-Faith Foundation, described online as faith-based travel. 

Updated at 10:46 a.m. ET: Two American tourists kidnapped in Egypt on Friday have been released, local police tell NBC News.

Updated at 10 a.m. ET: Egyptian generals are negotiating with Bedouin tribesmen thought to have kidnapped two Americans and their guides near a popular Red Sea resort on Friday, NBC News' Charlene Gubash reports from Cairo.

The kidnappers are demanding the release of of 33 Bedouins detained last week, she says, adding that Egyptian police now know the whereabouts of the hostages.

Updated at 9:10 a.m. ET: The U.S. State Department said it was working to confirm the citizenship of the two tourists who were kidnapped along with their guide in Egypt on Friday.

The U.S. Embassy in Cairo released the following statement to NBC News:

"Egyptian authorities have confirmed to us that two tourists, who they say are American citizens, have been kidnapped in Sinai. We are trying to confirm their citizenship and in the meantime are working closely with the Egyptian authorities to do everything possible to ensure the tourists' safety."

Updated at 7:10 a.m. ET: Two American tourists and their guide have been kidnapped near a popular Red Sea resort in Egypt, South Sinai's chief of police confirmed to NBC News Friday.

Egypt protesters besiege Cairo ministry

The news came just days after Bedouin tribesmen released about two dozen Chinese cement factory workers taken hostage in the country last week.

Egypt has faced deteriorating security and a surge in crime since the popular uprising that ousted Hosni Mubarak nearly a year
ago. Protesters accuse the military council that has assumed power and the police force of negligence.

On Friday, the military and police officials told The Associated Press that abductors sped away in a sedan and a pickup truck after taking the Americans, leaving behind three other people who had been in the minivan. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information, did not know the nationalities of those left behind.

The group had been traveling between St. Catherine's Monastery to the resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

Authorities said a search was under way.

Chinese abducted
On Saturday, 29 Chinese workers were captured by rebels in the Sudanese border state of South Kordofan. The 25 workers freed on Wednesday were in good condition, China's Xinhua news agency said, citing an embassy official there, Ma Jianchun.

Analysis: Egyptians share blame in soccer tragedy

Residents of Sinai say they are neglected by the central government in Cairo, and periodically attack police stations and block access to towns, villages and industrial sites to show their discontent.

The isolated desert region has become more lawless since an uprising ousted president Hosni Mubarak a year ago and threw the security apparatus into disarray.

Original post: Two American tourists in Egypt have been kidnapped, South Sinai's chief of police confirmed to NBC News on Friday.

Five tourists were on their way from St. Catherine's Monastery to the very popular Red Sea resort of Sharm El Sheikh, the police told NBC News. He added that Bedouin tribesmen took two and an Egyptian guide and let the remaining three go with the car.

The two are most likely being held to exchange for release of prisoners and land the Bedouin tribe want, NBC reported. They may have also been kidnapped in revenge for a recent crackdown by police.

NBC News, msnbc.com staff, Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

More from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• Ex-Khmer Rouge prison chief gets life in prison
• Panetta report fuels concerns that Israel will attack Iran
• 2 dead, 600 hurt in protests after soccer riots
• White House: No decision yet on end to combat in Afghanistan
• London landlords evict tenants to gouge tourists?
• Defiant Chinese village takes steps toward democracy